Review by Saxy S for Ethereal Darkness - Smoke and Shadows (2019)

Like I said with my Nailed to Obscurity album review last year, undercard death doom bands have a mountain to climb if they want to retain any sort of relevancy anymore. Ethereal Darkness' debut album, Smoke and Shadows is a mostly pleasant, if a little boring, project that provides no inspiration to a genre that has been fruitful in the last couple of years. Granted, some of my criticisms can be thrown away when you consider when this album was released, but even by those standards, I cannot see this as a good thing. The death doom on display here is predictable and does not do much to separate itself from contemporaries. The standard for this genre has been raised by Fires in the Distance, Red Moon Architect and Aeonian Sorrow of late and I see no attempts to stand out and carve their own path here. Smoke and Shadows feels like the kind of death doom album that you throw on as background noise or as playlist filler. It sounds okay in the moment, but give it anymore of your time and you'll start to regret it.

Best Songs: Forgotten Shadows, The Light That Fades, Time