Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Solitude Aeturnus - Into the Depths of Sorrow (1991)

My struggles with Solitude Aeturnus (or more Rob's vocals) have been documented before on Metal Academy, so seeing their debut album crop up on The Fallen challenge hardly filled me with joy in all honesty.  I deliberately left it to the end thinking that to some degree the outcome was more or less set that I would be disappointed with the album overall.  Epic doom has a bar that was set high by the mighty Candlemass and is often a level that is failed to be lived up to in my experience so I go into most epic doom records with my guard firmly up.

Except, here I soon find myself dropping my dukes, within mere minutes in fact I am sat nodding appreciatively along to Into the Depths of Sorrow before I even know it.  My concerns that Rob's vocals are going to be a whiny and whimpering affair are not founded as it turns out, in fact I think he submits a very measured and yet clearly strong performance over the eight tracks on offer.  I will not pretend to love all of his work on here (things so go astray badly on closing track, Where Angels Dare to Tread) but in the main this is a much better experience than I was expecting.  The album has much more to it than Rob of course.  Rivera and Perez are a pair of riff demons and they are the real engine of Into the Depths of Sorrow.  There are times when things are not exactly going to my liking in every other aspect of the sound but I still have no beef with the guitar work that is going on.  It is more subtle than you would think at first also.  They are happy to pick strings when necessary to let other parts of the music take a front seat but then out of nowhere comes a lead, fired like a bullet across the track to take things off in a new direction.

I have a couple of minor criticisms that are enough to keep the album away from the top end of the scoring chart.  The drums have an odd sterility to them which half the time I think works well and the other half I feel is just a bit odd sounding.  They have presence, absolutely they do, but at the same time they have an almost programmed feel to them which is odd considering that John Covington is sat behind the skins.  Also, in parts, I feel the album is too epic for its own good.  I mean when Transcending Sentinels starts, you are fucking ready for it to start as it seems to have an unnecessarily long build up.  But these are minor quibbles on a record that has been a great end to my The Fallen clan challenge.