3rd and the Mortal, The - Tears Laid in Earth (1994)^{Release ID: 4439}

Sorrow was the first taste of the atmospheric female-fronted progressive doom pioneered by The 3rd and the Mortal. Today I revisit the album that really sealed the deal with their sound, Tears Laid in Earth.

I can still recognize most of the greatness in this offering! As melodic guitars and haunting atmosphere transcend, guiding them through is the angelic vocals sung by Kari Rueslatten. Thanks to her, the idea of female vocals in metal would spread like wildfire, convincing The Gathering, After Forever, and many other symphonic/gothic metal bands to tag along for the ride. There's no denying how much of a game-changing mesmerizing vocalist Rueslatten is.

"Vandring" is the intro consisting of just her voice. Then the music begins with "Why So Lonely?" It stands out in peaceful melancholy from the riffing and singing. As of writing this review, I had a short amount of sleep due to having to wake up early (fasting month), and listening to this song, I can almost hallucinate a hot angelic goddess from the heavens singing to me, "Will you be mine till the end of time?" We have another excellent highlight in "Atupoema" with its audible bass. "Death-Hymn" is a heavier track in both the music and the lyrics of darkness and despair ("I never thought I would feel this way", "Prepare your soul for the journey through the woods of evil").

There are more ambient synths in "Shaman", performed by Rueslatten herself. The instrumental "Trial of Past" has clean guitars that make another melodic highlight. Even the drumming can get heavy despite being simplistic. What causes the quality to drop a little, away from perfection, is the two-minute "Lengsel", which is fine but a little pointless. "Salva Me" is more gothic in a similar vein to Gothminister, specifically the tracks featuring Nell Sigland of Theatre of Tragedy.

The least creative song title ever "Song" is actually one of the most creative tracks in the album, starting atmospheric before becoming more intense at the climax. I also like the dark sorrow of "In Mist Shrouded". And finally, "Oceana", still reigning as the longest and greatest T3ATM song. Not even the closing track of Sorrow can surpass it. The band created a monstrous complex 19-minute epic can put Fates Warning's epics to shame. You can rarely find vocals and clean guitars as haunting as in the beginning. And as it goes on, you can find yourself swimming in an oceanic realm, with the guitar effects singing a unworldly whale-song. And the rest is perfect history!

All in all, Tears Laid in Earth is what I can still consider an atmospheric female-fronted progressive doom near-masterpiece. The two-minute tracks may prevent this album from being totally perfect, but a lot of the best and almost the first songs of this style are all in here, including that unbeatable 19-minute epic. The divine vocals of Kari Rueslatten can really make my day. Amazing album for anyone wanting all things beautiful without any of that radio pop sh*t!

Favorites: "Why So Lonely?", "Atupoema", "Death-Hymn", "Trial of Past", "Song", "Oceana"

I''m not going to sugar coat it. I absolutely hate this. This is another one of those female-fronted bands that coasts off "we have a pretty operatic-soprano" singer. Like all the other stuff like this, you have a mediocre metal band backing a front woman who would clearly rather be doing anything else. If you would like Nightwish but slower here ya go. Personally, I'd banish this stuff from the face of the earth if I could. The appropriate subgenre is "metal for people who don't actually like metal, performed by people who probably don't actually like metal." Did I mention that I don't like it very much?

My Fallen clan challenge starts to take me to come very different waters as I get into the final third.  Having been a largely positive experience thus far, there has been some genuinely unexpected discoveries along the way.  The 3rd and Mortal however present a very different experience, one that has its high points as well as its lows it has to be said.  Considering what I normally listen to from the country of Norway, these guys are a few football fields away from my usual black metal fodder that I consume with the vigour of a rabid animal.  When I got Tears Laid in Earth between my teeth however I instantly started pulling the face of a confused dog, tilting my head from side to side like I could not believe what I was hearing.

First of all, I cannot ignore how good a vocalist Kirsti Huke is.  Although she is entirely the wrong fit for this band and indeed this genre, she has a beautiful and shrill vocal style that when considered in isolation is undeniably good.  The challenge is that the rest of the band/the music just cannot fit around her.  Listen to this album and what you will hear is the instrumentation doing its upmost to play some doom, using keyboards, pianos and atmospherics alongside the guitars and drums to create some haunting (although never oppressive) music.  Meanwhile, whenever Kirsti sings, everything else takes a back seat.  The structures to tracks become so predictable, so quickly that I soon start to lose interest.  Indeed, the only thing that keeps me present with the album are the two instrumental tracks in the middle of the album (arguably the high point of the record for me) where Kirsti does not sing but cries out alongside the instrumentation instead - more evidence that the two do not fit together well at all.

Trond and Geir are perfectly competent guitarists, that much is obvious here.  However, they clearly want to play doom metal - not some ethereal gothic metal - and as a result the album feels constantly short-changed by these opposing elements.  Forget you are listening to a doom record and the album is not half-bad but I am on the Fallen clan challenge, not some easy-listening playlist challenge.