We, ze Germans, we primarily associate Palma de Mallorca with worn-out German stars who earn a little extra money on their pensions with drinking songs and other musical rubbish. The band Helevorn shows us that the best and finest melodic atmospheric doom comes from this sunny island. Paradise Lost should actually have sounded like this for umpteen albums. Especially when you consider that Nick Holmes roars old-school death metal with the Swedish band Bloodbath. "Inherit the Stars" radiates such an epic and spatial expanse that this song doesn't really fit in a smelly little club. "The Defiant God" reminds me very much of Anathema at the transition between "Serenades" and "Eternity", well-balanced melancholy between doom/death and gothic. In the following song "Signals", the gothic element predominates at the beginning, which gives way to a more doom-oriented direction after the first solo, only to return to gothic at the end. So far I have only heard fantastic songs and fantastic songwriting. This continues with "When Nothing Shudders", which goes from a ballad to a neck-breaking doom metal track. "Unbreakable Silence" is too slow for me personally and the lyrics are very drawn out; perhaps the song would be better as an instrumental piece because the vocals kill the mood. "L'Endema" is sung in Catalan, which has a similar effect to Solstafir; the song definitely gains emotional depth. The language makes the song even more melancholic and sad. "Children of the Sunrise" is one of my absolute favorites on this album, because you can't write a song that is darker and more depressing. So I'm excited, even though doom isn't my favorite music. It depends on how you mix it and how you vary the tempo and atmosphere. Helevorn manage to do it and this musical class should actually be able to do a support tour with Paradise Lost or Amorphis or even a slot at European festivals.
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