Empyrium - Songs of Moors and Misty Fields (1997)^{Release ID: 3937}

Empyrium continue their unique sound of Folk Doom Metal, with tons of Symphonic elements and a medieval touch for good measure. This one is an improvement over the debut on all fronts, having a good amount of variety in sound and dense, lush soundscapes of flute, keys, acoustics… all manner of folky instrumentation.

Melancholy permeates this release, but it’s not the depressive kind. This is an almost peaceful, romantic gloom, poetically painting beautiful nature scenery with admiration of love lost or unattainable. Vocals have a nice range of somewhat epic, deep cleans and Black Metal shrieks. The occasional double bass drumming adds great energy to this release as well, the band knowing when to kick things into doomy overdrive.

The music occasionally borders on boring, but most of the time, the rich orchestrations and gentle melodies are more than enough to carry the release. Very unique for its era, and still pleasant today.