Suru raivosi sydämeni pimeydessä

After 11 years of hiatus, Dark The Suns returned with a new album in 2021. This album marks a slight departure of their older styles, namely shedding some of the old death/doom elements for a more melodeath direction, while keeping the gothic elements that have defined their sound. The lack of death/doom elements mean that the sound of the album will shift to a brighter feel, much like spring or summer, like what the cover art shows, instead of the freezing leaves seen on All Ends In Silence.

This album still resembles a lot of other gothic bands, lacking in originality and technicality, but they did what they do best and deliver us a slightly warmer and still melancholic record that is full of cold and ethereal pianos, strong melodic guitar leads, standard but effective harsh vocals, and solid drumming that when combined with the rest, creates an incredibly entertaining and replayable album. But what makes it different from its previous albums is that it is now a more melodeath-adjacent album than a death/doom-adjacent one, and with that it comes with more variation in its songwriting, removing some repetition in their songwriting. While the fast songs sound similar, the slower songs are unlike each other, including a death/doom song that sounds like it was imported wholesale from All Ends In Silence. I also particularly like the new synthesized violins from the keyboards that gave the songs a more manic and energetic feeling.

For all of its shortcomings, this album is still an improvement over the previous 3 albums, it sounds dark and extreme, while staying accessible for everyone to listen to. Overall a really entertaining and replayable album that everyone should give a chance to listen to.

Highlights: Suru Raivosi Sydämeni Pimeydessä, Hope In Our Hands, Spirit in the Dark