The Sins Of Thy Beloved
Perpetual Desolation
Napalm, 2000
When Theatre Of Tragedy emerged from the blackened realms of Norway, they offered a refreshing sound that was nowhere near what that region had (and still is, in some respects) long been associated with. Their theatrical, dramatic Gothic Metal proved that there was more to Norway than corpsepaint and church burnings. Since then, there have emerged bands like Tristania, Trial Of Tears and Myriads who have taken Theatre Of Tragedy's basic foundation and created their own unique musical visions around it.
Along with Tristania, The Sine Of Thy Beloved are atop this movement and their second release, Perpetual Desolation, sees the band injecting a bit more aggression into their Symphonic Metal approach, a move similar to what Tristania did with their most recent Beyond The Veil opus. Perpetual Desolation boasts a wonderful production, courtesy of the band and Terje Refsnes. The sound is crystal clear and powerful, making every instrument perfectly audible. And this fact is enhanced tenfold when considering the remarkable talents of the 7 musicians that make up this unit.
However, for all their instrumental accomplishments, The Sins Of The Beloved's songwriting tends to suffer from overabundance of musical ideas. Perpetual Desolation lacks the overwhelming emotional and atmospheric aspects that make Tristania the best band currently playing this style. Tristania welcomes the listener into their compositions and are masters of keeping things interesting throughout the length of each song. The Sins Of Thy Beloved have not mastered this task, leaving their songs coming across more like a schizophrenic mixture of various musical embellishments rather than creating anything particularly moving or memorable. No song really stands out as a whole. Within each of these nine tracks there can be found passages that could have been deleted for the better of the song, in turn leaving no song flowing for its duration and with these songs being of the rather lengthy variety, this causes me to find myself drifting off during certain sections. If only they would condense their ideas, their desired intent could be much more effective. The band are quite adept at creating atmospheric impact, but it isn't long before these moments are disrupted by instrumental embellishments and directionless passages. For instance, "Forever" and "Partial Insanity" both begin on positive notes, drawing the listener into the song with emotional atmospheres and memorable melodies, but it's almost as if the band become bored, or suffer from attention deficit disorder, and the songs drift in and out of potent and forgettable moments, losing sight of the initial theme." Nebula Queen" is probably as close as they come at writing a song that flows well and does not abandon its' original theme, with memorable moments abounding within "Pandemonium" and "The Mournful Euphony".
It's all very technically proficient, yet something's missing. The gruff and screamed male vocals lack conviction and the female vocals, while possessing a floating, angelic tone, can at times become annoying. Stand-in violinist Pete Johansen, who also has done work for Tristania, is a supreme player, but his playing is too busy to achieve what the instrument should do in the context of this form of music, which is to enhance atmosphere. Johansen's approach is akin to that of a lead guitarist, sort of like Eddie Van Halen on violin. His best performance comes in "The Mournful Euphony", which not only stands as the band's most effective marriage of aggression and atmosphere, but benefits greatly from Pete's more subtle playing during the more atmospheric sections. The album closes with a Symphonic Metal take to Metallica's "The Thing That Should Not Be", always my least favorite song on Master Of Puppets. It's an interesting listen with female vocals merging with harsh male vox and Pete's violin playing Kirk Hammet's guitar solo making this version much more interesting than the original.