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Solitude Aeturnus is a band I didn't pay much attention to when they debuted in the late 80s. I wrote them off as a Candlemass clone and nothing they've released in the intervening 20+ years has changed my opinion much. Over the past couple of years, I've started to appreciate Doom Metal more so when this new Solitude Aeturnus release, featuring their original demo along with some other demos and live songs, showed up, I figured I'd see what I'd been missing.

The first thing I noticed is that singer Robert Lowe's vocals fall under the acquired taste category. He's suitably emotive, like Messiah Marcolin, sometimes overly so. He follows his own tune here and there. Not that he's out of tune, but maybe singing one slightly different from the rest of the band. The band themselves sound accomplished, even at this early stage of their careers. The guitars are fuzzy without drowning out the rest of the music in reverb. Tempos are generally slow, as you would expect, with the occasional quicker tempo thrown in. The first five songs, from the original demo, are standard late 80s Candlemass-style Doom and aren't particularly notable, but not bad. Of the remaining four songs two are rehearsal recordings and the sound is not great, while the live track, "And Justice for All," sounds awful. Just when I was ready to write this off as being exactly as uninteresting as I'd imagined, the album closes with an absolute diamond in the rough, "Mirror of Sorrow." Like a couple of other songs on In Times of Solitude, "Mirror of Sorrow" was originally released on the band's debut album. The songwriting here is light years ahead of the rest of In Times of Solitude. The vocals are perfectly complemented by the music. Softer verses build emotional tension which Lowe lets loose on the bombastic choruses. This is huge, epic Doom that I could listen to over and over again.

In Times of Solitude is a must for Solitude Aeturnus fans but I'm not sure how much appeal it will have to the broader metal community. If you like good Doom Metal, however, I urge you to check out "Mirror of Solitude" at the very least.