THE SPECTRAL SORROWS

The Spectral Sorrows is an interesting album, to say the very least. While Edge of Sanity's previous album, Unorthodox, was pretty standard death metal, The Spectral Sorrows is quick to change that. The band's third album is still (very) firmly rooted in the Swedish death metal scene, but you should expect to hear goth rock, progressive rock/metal, traditional heavy metal, and of course some brutal death metal packed inside of this very unique album.

As mentioned earlier, The Spectral Sorrows is hard to pin down as just one genre. This is a diverse album, and it will appeal to people with diverse tastes of music. If you're just looking for pure death metal, you will most likely be disappointed with this album. Of course, if you're okay with some variation this shouldn't be a problem at all! One of my biggest issues with many death metal releases is that the formula becomes tired and overused by the end of the album. That is not the case with this album. Whenever the standard death metal formula begins to get a little tiring, there is usually a song that will serve as a perfect breaking point between the death metal intensity.

The best songs on The Spectral Sorrows depends on what you are looking for. If you're looking for death metal, most of the album will surely impress you. You'll find some killer riffs on this album. If you're looking for proggy stuff, like Crimson, songs like Across The Fields of Forever, On The Other Side, and Lost should appeal to you, as well as the surprisingly beautiful A Serenade For The Dead. If you're in search of goth rock, Sacrificed and the Manowar cover, Blood of My Enemies should appeal to you. Clearly, The Spectral Sorrows will appeal to a wide variety of metalheads.

The musicians in Edge of Sanity are fantastic, despite all of their disagreements on later albums. Though Benny Larson's drumming, Andreas Axelsson's and Sami Nerberg's guitars are fantastic, Dan Swanö takes the cake. He is one of my musical idols, and I will always worship his godliness at the microphone, not to mention his superb songwriting.

The production is perfect for this kind of music. It's crushingly heavy, yet sophisticated enough to deliver a satisfying experience to any audiophile. Börje Forsberg and Edge of Sanity completely nailed the production on The Spectral Sorrows. Dan Swanö's brilliant mixing and engineering is worth noting as well.

Conclusion:

The Spectral Sorrows took a while for me to appreciate, but I've eventually grown to love it. I'm very glad that I dedicated a lot of time in an attempt to appreciate The Spectral Sorrows, because it is now one of my favorite Edge of Sanity albums. Of course, it doesn't rank up there with Crimson, Crimson II, or Purgatory Afterglow, but it is still an excellent 4 star album. Highly recommended to open minded death metal fans.

4 stars.

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