Beyond Good And Evil (Solitude Productions)

 I must admit I was pretty confused when I received this album, I have never heard about this band before (which isn’t strange at all, although the band was formed in 2002, Gloomy Sunday remained completely silent until now); judging by the cover art, I was expecting a sort of Black Sabbath styled traditional Doom Metal, but the band’s name was quite disconcerting; “Gloomy Sunday”, as the Hungarian “suicide song”, this name makes me thought about a possible Goth-tinged Rock/Metal band… When I finally played this Cd I was nicely surprised (although I’m not sure if the adjective “nice” is the most correct term to describe what I heard); this Swedish quartet, plays an intense, down tuned and powerful Sludge/Doom Metal crowned by an horrendous vocal work (in the good way); the vocal work of Mr. Jari Kuittinen is definitely the most bizarre element of the entire disc, it’s also pretty "hard to digest", but sets the undisputable trademark of Gloomy Sunday with its raspy, forced, harsh and somewhat flat but hate-fueled vocalizations. The whole music is undoubtedly rooted in traditional Doom Metal, but the crawling Sludge sound is highly present in every track “spiced” with some dope Stoner traces, reminding me a little the sound of Crowbar or even Eye Hate God (especially in tracks such “Fluoxetin Selena”). The only fairly negative point of “Beyond Good And Evil” is the production; the whole album sounds pretty saturated, which makes it somewhat “illegible” at some passages…Besides of this sound issue this album is a really surprising debut, where the band shows a powerful, dark and original musical proposal… definitely a really good work worthy of our attention. (AP)