SERVANTS TO THE TIDE is an epic doom metal band from Germany. This self titled album is their debut.   I'll go ahead and tell you this: this album is absolutely incredible.  With six tracks and run time of just thirty four minutes, I do wish it were longer.  But what is here within these boundaries is stunning. What stood out to me immediately is the balance between the heavier, more aggressive moments and the lighter, more melodic ones.  Musically speaking, the album is more along the lines of traditional doom but the melody counteracts this for an imaginative, modern approach.  This album has the thick riffs and demanding bass we love doom for yet it is catchy as hell and every song finds a way to jump out and get buried in the mind for days at at time.

Much of this is due to the vocalist Stephan who has a damn near perfect voice.  His vocals are clean, smooth, yet powerful in their approach.  He has a way with words, a certain cadence and inflection that really shows off the lyrics in a poetic fashion.  All three members have an obvious musical rapport for the songs to have turned out as well as they have.  Each one gives their all but never for any reason other than putting the talent to use for the band and songs themselves.

The opening track, "Departing From Miklagard," is nothing more than an intro but even it is heartening.  Stephan's vocals gently touch on Leonid's acoustic guitar, poetry in motion.  The keyboards in the beginning are grandiose but become more atmospheric.  The whole song is just a minute a half long--it definitely could have been turned into a full length. The next track, "A Wayward Son's Return," opens with a crushing, thick riff and the drums to match it.  The guitars during the vocal stanza's are more melodic, and dip back and forth with laying down a heavy riff then going for more intricate notes.  After the second chorus, the lead guitar sprinkles melodic leads over the riffs before the song, briefly, grows quiet with clean keys touching against the leads.  Precision drums kick the song further down into doom territory and the song ends with the band playing their hearts out and a wonderful vocal passage.

"North Sea," is almost jaunty like a song that be sang upon a ship hundreds of years ago.  I love the simple but effective keys that follow along with the vocals.  The distortion enters the fray around the minute mark or so before the vocal and keyboard passages return but this time with the drums at their backing.  The guitars seem to follow a similar cadence that matches the chorus and it gives the song high emotion.  Meatier and faster riffs make their way around the halfway mark and bolster the song upon high sails in hurricane winds.

The main riff in "On Marsh and Bones (The Face of Black Palmyra) is fucking dirty as hell, almost sludge like in its consistency.  The tempo on this track is quite a bit faster than the previous ones and it makes for some needed variety although the band is at their best when they stick to more slower paced, melancholic waters. Then comes the song "The Sun Will Never Shine For me."  This song, especially the chorus, is HUGE.  I mean, this is a monster song that deserves to be sang in a stadium to 200,000 fans.  That won't ever happen because people suck and only listen to garbage while good bands like this struggle to get by.  But in a perfect world, you would hear this song being sang on the street by random passerby or on the radio.  The riffs, tempo, melodies, the chorus...everything about this song is put together so well that it just begs to be heard.  The guitars rock hard in between the chorus, a fine mix of dire doom and European melodies.

Then we come to the kind of title track, "A Servant To The Tide," and it is a banger.  There are some death growls in this song and they sound natural next to the clean vocals.  Perhaps the band will add in some more growls for future releases?  This is the most musically dense song with all kinds of sweet riffs, harmonies, and melodies thrown into every nook and cranny.  The music gets rougher to accommodate the growls but finds its way back to their melodic doom style with ease.  The song breaks just for a few precious seconds around the 2:41 mark with a sprinkle of keyboards and then goes into a passage where the clean vocals and growls trade off lyric lines.  Super impressive.

Considering it is their first album, SERVANTS TO THE TIDE have a released a short but wholly engaging set of melodic, epic doom. This is a must have for any fan of non-extreme doom metal.  Highly recommended.