Lake of Sorrow

The Sins Of Thy Beloved are quite a unique band. I remember first hearing them through a friend who was absolutely obsessed with gothic music. She didn't particularly rant and rave about this Norwegian outfit, but she did like them. So, due to that I decided to listen to them and surprisingly, I did quite like them. I'm not a fan of symphonic music. A lot of it is downright dire, but fortunately The Sins Of Thy Beloved tend to incorporate doom metal into their music.


There are a number of problems with this band and a number of people just love to point them out. The lyrics are horrible. I'm an English student and I cannot bare to read them because they have completely and utterly destroyed the language. It's unfair to be too harsh on the band though because English isn't their native language, but you could argue, if you're not fluent with it, why use it at all? They could have stuck to using Norwegian, I wouldn't have minded, in all honesty. I would prefer that to a band who attempts to use a language they're not comfortable with. However, lyrics aren't what makes this band sound the way they do. The creative nature is bound to spark up an interest from a certain amount of people, especially those with a particular liking for symphonic gothic music.


With gothic music tends to come operatic vocals nowadays. I hate operatic vocals, but The Sins Of Thy Beloved just about pull them off. The main female vocalist, yes, there are two, is very fitting for this bands style. Anita Auglend displays much more talent when it comes to singing, than the band do when it comes to actually writing lyrics. The lyrical themes, as well as the actual content of the lyrics, are all a bit cheesy too. Which is a problem to me. I don't enjoy cheese. Not even the food, which people tend to find quite strange.


If I wanted cheese, i'd listen to power metal all day and all night, but considering the fact that I don't, just cut it out and stick to making ethereal soundscapes by using beautiful violins and low growled vocals from the bands male vocalist, Glenn Morten Nordbø. The alternating nature of the vocals is healthy. There are sections when harsh vocals suit the music more and passages where the female vocalists can strut their stuff more accordingly. The Sins Of Thy Beloved utilise using three vocalists well, or are well as possible. Speaking of those horrible lyrics, take a look at these:


"remember all
things we done
and all the times
we made love
remember the night
when we talked
and you kissed me
so we made love
all night"


That's just bad. Plain bad. There are occasions when the audience may deem it simply unnecessary to use three vocalists and they'd probably be right. In terms of innovation, The Sins Of Thy Beloved do quite well. Everything is varied, the percussion, the keyboards and those fantastic violins which play a key part to the bands sound. Thankfully, there are moments of glory, despite the fact that it sounds like all doom and gloom. 'All Alone' and 'Silent Pain' are two very noteworthy tracks. With the bands future seemingly uncertain, this is a decent offering, but will never go down in history as one of the greatest of its genre.