The US Doom/Death Metal band FALL OF EMPYREAN - after a big 6 year absence - return to discography with their third full-length album entitled "A Life Spent Dying".The band hadalready finished the writing, the recording and the mixing of the album long ago, since 2007, but it was not released until now with the band singing in 2009 a four-album deal with Germany's Grau Records. The predecessors of their new album, "Anhedonia" (2002) and "A Darkness Remembered" (2004), weregood albums that made them known mostly in the US Doom/Death Metal scene and gradually in Europe. Now with "A Life Spent Dying" the band makes, in my opinion, another step forward in their career.

Honestly there aren't many things to say about this album. This is a pure Doom/Death Metal record with everything you might love in the scene : very good slow and mid tempo melancholic guitar riffs, great growls by Richard Medina accompanied by some clean spoken parts and a controlled use of keyboards which sets the proper mood. Imagine early KATATONIA and ANATHEMA , MY DYING BRIDE (without the violin) or SWALLOW THE SUN and you will understand in a big percentage how FALL OF EMPYREAN sounds.But in my opinion their sound is closer to NOVEMBERS DOOM, a band that is very well-known and highly appreciated among the hardcore fans of the Doom/Death Metal scene.

"A Life Spent Dying" starts with the 2-minute instrumental "Bereft" which immediately puts the listener in the mood and style of the songs following. Here we've got everything we can possibly want: pure Doom/Death songs blended with some more aggressive riffs and anger like "Breathe Deep The Cinders" and "Catharsis" (which is the heavier song of the album) and beautiful songs like "Vast But Desolate", "The Air Is Still" and "Veins Split Wide" which focus mostly in the melancholic side of their music. There are also two slow and melancholic instrumental acoustic songs: "Anhedonia" (named the same with their debut album) and "Lifeless In My Arms",which are really good. The songs seem really close and based on similar ideas and in my opinion one of them could have been easily omitted from the album, but on the other hand they are great relaxing melancholic breaks between the other tracks.

All in all,"A Life Spent Dying" is a really enjoyable album from beginning till the end. The only disadvantage of the CD may be that it lacks some really great songs that would raise its quality from something really good to excellent. I recommend it to Doom/Death Metal fans and especially to the hardcore fans of the scene that will surely appreciate it a lot.