Eternal Tears Of Sorrow – Children Of The Dark Waters (2009)

After being blown away by the promising new track from this album that was included in their single “Tears Of Autumn Rain”, I was expecting this album very much, since the band usually takes a while to release albums.

“Children Of The Dark Waters” was well worth the wait of 3 years, the album picks off where “Before The Bleeding Sun” left off with the track “Angelheart, Ravenheart” and it never lets go. The band’s unique symphonic sound is one of my favorite things about the band and I must say that they have improved it since the last album.

All tracks in this release are majestically composed and make the album flow perfectly, creating a haunting experience of brutal parts, melancholic keyboards and great choruses. The combination of harsh vocals, power metal style vocals, clean male vocals and female vocals provides the music a whole different dimension, giving a very theatrical feeling to the music, (like in “Sea Of Whispers”).

ETOS is one of those bands that had very good sound since the beginning and they have just kept improving on it without taking out the elements that have made them standout, and you can clearly hear this throughout the album, since you get the same feeling as their previous albums but you hear new elements here and there that add extra depth to the bands music (like in “Midnight Bird”). The traditional guitar sound is present, as well as the occasional solos and even some keyboard solos are found in this album.

It is impossible for us to find a favorite song since the whole album works perfectly as a unit and I can’t get enough of it. I have listened to the whole album probably over 20 times and I still find new and interesting things within the songs.

“Children Of The Dark Waters” is one of the best albums of that we’ve heard this year and will be one of our strongest candidates for best album of the year. Musically this band can’t get any better and they have achieved a masterpiece with this album. I would definitely recommend this album to any body that likes melodic metal of any kind since it has a bit of everything for everybody.

Release: May 25th, 2009

Country: Finland