Before the Bleeding Sun

When I first got into this band, this album was just released. It doesn’t depart too far musically from their two great albums that preceded this. Its emphasis on the keys is pushed in a symphonic direction rather than one where melody is a prime additive to the lead guitar’s harmonies. Chaotic Beauty and A Virgin And A Whore were centered around this mutual attraction between instrument roles, creating fantastic gothic-tinged melodic death. That’s less highlighted here, going for a riff orientation that’s a separate application of the symphonic elements. No, Eternal Tears Of Sorrow’s Before The Bleeding Sun is a comeback which eases listeners of the band’s melodic death elegance into another similar streamlined edition of melodic death.

The band’s earlier albums (not counting the debut) perfectly captured melancholy and power metal prowess in its melodic death midpoint. This one doesn’t do it as well, opting to sound more uplifting and positive in comparison. Songs like the opener and “Red Dawn Rising,” with their crispy riffs, snarled growls / screams, radiant cleans (in the latter’s case), and prodigious keyboards crafting sincere melodies are a part of the band’s refined sound. Those two are the best examples on this album of this momentum in digestible forms, with a few notches less of the same aggression a band like Kalmah delivers. Drumming reflects this sound in its eccentric conveyance. It can sound mechanical at times as it’s got concerted thumps with the drum bass and such, but I can’t pinpoint any lack of appropriate fills. Sankala did drums on the band’s best work, as well as Kalmah’s almost perfect debut, so there’s not much to knock him down for.

Other parts on the album are easier to attack. Like the boring “Another Me” with its crunchy riffing and the closer’s overly long cheesiness. Before The Bleeding Sun is a good album, but it’s melodrama like that which brings the album down. The closer, which is padded quite a bit, has pretty lame verses with Altti’s throaty voice. First off, is that actually him line-reading the verses? Secondly, who decided that should be the delivery? Thirdly, why the hell is the song so long? The clean segments are quite joyous, but it’s not like the song’s got much else going for it until the thrashier segment later on. Rather than hearing that (and the tacky keys that follow it), go hear the combined “Sakura No Rei” and “Sinister Rain”. It’s split up into two tracks, but they’re essentially one song that combines to make the peak of the album. Those two are doomy, immense, bass-laden, and majestic. The majority of the album isn’t unmemorable, but these two tracks are a plateau above the rest with their intense chugging, angelic cleans, and passion.

This album’s colors gleam well, but it may take some time to see it (related: the album art is luscious). It doesn’t have the same instant satisfaction the previous two albums had. It’s got a crystalline production job and more hits than duds, which has it in a better position than a lot of its peers. For all its strengths, it’s just not superb. This isn’t the grandest, most profound, or most diverse of symphonic metal / melodic death albums, but it’s got direction and purpose. It’s enough to stand on its own, but not enough to topple its own.

When hearing a name like Eternal Tears Of Sorrow, the band associated with it would probably be expected to put forth music comparable to the likes of The Sins Of Thy Beloved or Theater Of Tragedy. In essence, it took this band about 4 albums to come to this realization, as their earlier material was more along the line of the Finnish melodeath explosion of the late 90s, culminating in the likes of Kalmah, Children Of Bodom and later Norther. To be fair, they were just as accomplished at Finland’s rather interesting blend of Gothenburg melodies and power metal oriented riffing and technical solo craft, but it should definitely be noted that the resulting shift in sound that came with 2006’s “Before The Bleeding Sun” were much more welcoming than the blunder that was “Are You Dead Yet?”.

This album came on the heels of a brief hiatus/breakup of the band that led a couple of their members to collaborate with Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish fame on the short lived gothic metal project For My Pain, and a strong musical affinity for Nightwish was brought back to complement this band’s melodic death metal roots. The heavily lead guitar oriented style typical to past efforts has been downplayed only slightly in favor of making room for a dense assortment of keyboard ambiences, some of them symphonic, others synthetic, but the overall feel of this album is still largely steeped in the stereotypical Finnish power/melodeath character. Several backing vocal slots along similar lines to the massive choirs heard on “Wishmaster” also appear frequently throughout the majority of these songs, almost as if 75% of the instrumentation is playing an angelic beauty foil to Vetelainen’s beastly barks and groans.

In comparison to the album that would follow in “Children Of The Dark Waters”, this one is a bit closer to their earlier sound, resulting in a smooth transition from the guitar dominated “A Virgin And A Whore” and what came before. The shortest song on here “Sakura No Rei”, which functions as a segue into the coasting chug machine with tons of vocal and keyboard additives “Sinister Rain”, as well as the epic closer “Angelheart, Ravenheart (Act 1: Before The Bleeding Sun)” function as the lighter fair and resemble a typical Nightwish or Epica approach to blending metal and symphonic sounds. There’s a bit more guitar and keyboard acrobatics than what typically occurs in said bands of late, but this definitely gets dangerously close to the glorious anthems heard on “Oceanborn” and “Wishmaster”.

The remaining 2/3rds of this album are a lot closer to the up tempo, almost thrashing character of early 2000s Kalmah, featuring guitar work that is actually a bit more elaborate still and flirts with Arch Enemy territory. There isn’t really a dull moment to spend while listening to any of these songs, though “Sweet Lilith Of My Dreams” does a brilliant job of merging a strong power metal element in with the gloomy, forlorn character of early In Flames. Vetelainen’s vocals get a little higher in pitch and actually begin to resemble the agonized shouts Anders Friden would put to “The Jester Race”, while the guitar work is moderately thrashing and the drums occasionally spit out a brief blast beat.

The new era of Eternal Tears Of Sorrow is arguably the most accessible example of gothic tinged metal consumable by non-fans of said style, as it walks a rather intricate line between the pomp of the symphonic sound and the cold rage of melodeath. It’s possible for someone who is not a fan of Nightwish to like this album, though the odds are that one who does go for the older works of said band will all but definitely like this. It’s a bit more direct and, on average, more aggressive than “Children Of The Dark Waters”, but ultimately it arrives at a similar place, and it’s one that anyone who resides between the world of extreme and traditional metal should look into.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on August 17, 2012.

Back in ’00 when I hadn’t properly began my dive into the more underground metal, Eternal Tears of Sorrow was among my favourite bands. The melancholic melodies mixed with growled vocals was something very appealing to me. It was something different, something new, yet not something too elaborate for me, a mere teenager, to understand and enjoy. This band (along with the usual suspects Children of Bodom) gave me insight on how metal was more than a mere extension of rock. Needless to say, there is a certain amount of nostalgia that accompanies their music for me. Eternal Tears of Sorrow disbanded in 2001, leaving me to venture on to find new bands to fill the void. Now after 5 years the band is back together with a minor line-up change.

In all honesty, you won’t be finding much Death Metal here apart from the vocals that haven’t changed much since Vilda Mannu. The music itself has taken on some goth influence (Finally fitting their name, one might say) due to the drummers (Petri Sankala) and bass player/vocalists (Altti Vetelainen) involvement in For My Pain, the Gothic side-project of Nightwish’s Tuomas Holopainen. Right from the opener Sweet Lilith of My Dreams it’s obvious they, like many others these days, have decided to milk the Symphonic moneycow. The guitar is – sadly – no longer as prominent as it was on their previous releases. That is not to say that guitar was ever the leading instrument for this band, but here it’s like there are no riffs left anymore, just guitar fuzz to go along with the keyboards. As before, the ostentatious keyboards take the lead. My first reaction upon hearing this was Nightwish with harsh vocals. This isn’t too far from the truth, but the signature mid-tempo melodeath free of Gothenburg influence is still present, buried under layers of symphonic keyboards. The atmosphere is unmistakable, but the loss of their former guitarist really shows.

Songs like Another Me and Tar Still Flows still show the more aggressive side of the band, but you won’t find another Shattered Soul here. The aggression is thwarted due to the overt concentration on melody. Some traces of Kalmah can be found as well, especially in the haunting Upon the Moors. A few songs have female guest vocals by Miriam Renvåg of Ram-Zet and they surprisingly fit the music without being too gluttonous on opposites like so many other melodeath bands tend to be. The main problem with this album lies in that though the songs are ‘technically’ different, the format used here gets redundant and the variation is merely superficial. Once you finally reach the end of the album you feel like you’ve listened to the same damn song eight times already, and in essence, you have. The only thing that changes is the melody, apart from the 9-minute ''epic'' closer Angelheart, Ravenheart. Boy let me tell, the name isn’t the only thing cheesy here. Spoken vocals with, repetitive lyrics over a repetitive keyboard melody, topped off with some wimpy-as-hell choirs and Nightwish-esque symphonic filling. It sounds like the band had an idea and a melody, but had nothing else to add.

EToS have seemingly taken the worst cliches of modern metal (or ''metal'') music (female vocals, abuse of symphonic keyboards etc.), mixed them together with EToS’s own sound and spiced it up a bit with elements from their other projects while managing to not sound overly generic. The idea is there, but the execution needs to be worked on. It’s like the band only wrote all of the songs halfway through and then moved onto the next one. Nevertheless, this album sounds very Finnish, in all of the good and the bad. This is where it comes down to taste. If you enjoy such bands as Children of Bodom and Kalmah you should probably give Before the Bleeding Sun a try. For everyone else this can be recommended in small doses, the melodies tend to become too cheesy after a few listens, much like in say, Sonata Arctica and such. As much as I would like to say the music of EToS was still as enjoyable for me as it was in the past, I guess my tastes have changed. I will still pop A Virgin and A Whore or Chaotic Beauty for a listen every now and then to enjoy some original and well-executed melodeath, but Before the Bleeding Sun is just uninspired and dull. Well, at least the cover art looks nice.

Alright, this is my first review so bear with me. With the return of Eternal Tears of Sorrow, Before the Bleeding Sun is born. I, like most people probably have been waiting for this album since the reunion was announced in January of 2005. When I first heard this CD, I was not disappointed, and you won’t be either. The guest vocals on this album add a lot to the CD, and flow well with the songs.

Sweet Lilith of My Dreams starts with a slow intro. After the intro, the keyboard blasts in with an amazing riff that sticks with the song. Towards the middle of the song there is another slower part that leads into the solo. The solo has a mix of fast and melodic parts that really add to the solo.

Another Me is probably one of my favorite tracks off this album. Starting with a guitar riff backed by some keyboards, you can already tell this is going to be a heavy song. The verse is goes on with a slight vocal change that is a little deeper than what we usually hear. The chorus is melodic and still fast paced. The solo, starts off slow picks up, not a truly amazing solo, but still very good.

Red Dawn Rising starts off the songs with the guest vocals. Another slow intro that eventually picks up. The verse is slower and has clean vocals. When the harsh vocals kick in, the song picks up some and then leads into the chorus which has a mix of the clean and harsh vocals. The solo comes and again is a mix of fast and melodic parts. The keyboard solo comes in and is a great addition to the song.

Upon the Moors starts slow and then picks up. Before the verse starts a guitar solo kicks in. Around the middle, the song slows and there are some clean vocals, the guitar kicks in with a good riff then enters the solo, which again is good, but not the greatest.

Sakura No Rei is a slow song throughout, and the shortest song on the album. The guitar and keyboard solos are slow and melodic this time around, no really fast parts. The end of this song leads into the next song Sinister Rain.

Sinister Rain starts with a slow drum beat and is followed by some clean singing. Most of the song is slower with a few faster parts that then go into the slower parts again. Nothing truly amazing about the solo in this song.

Lost Rune of Thunder starts with a good guitar riff, not to fast, but not to slow either. The riff from the beginning is seen throughout the song, and in the chorus. The keyboard solo is a little hard to hear and for the most part is slower. The guitar solo is another mix of fast parts and melodic parts. I’d say a better solo than some of the others on the CD.

Tar Still Flows is probably another one of my favorites on the CD. Another faster song, it starts with a keyboard riff where the guitars eventually come in. After the first verse, there is a guitar solo, a pretty good solo. Towards the center of the song there is a slower part like in other songs on this CD. Another guitar solo kicks in afterwards.

Angelheart, Ravenheart is the longest song on the CD and another slower song. It almost sounds like there are two different songs put into one here. There are different kinds of vocals on this song, and many different guest vocalists make an appearance. The first guitar solo is slow and melodic. Halfway through, it gets slower and then picks up to a more moderate pace. A faster guitar solo here and back into a faster verse with the harsh vocals. A keyboard solo is played, and again is somewhat hard to hear completely. A great melody is played first on keyboard and then on guitar also.

Before the Bleeding Sun is a must have for all Eternal Tears of Sorrow fans and for all other metal fans. A great comeback album that will hopefully lead to more great CDs by this band.