Originally posted in Destructive Music

» And they’re back! After more than a decade with Century Media and a brief passage by Nuclear Blast, they’ve returned via Napalm Records with their atmospheric gothic metal, a sound many bands produce now but which, personally speaking, none does like Tiamat.

When I commented I was reviewing “The Scarred People”, a friend asked me if it was more like “Prey” or more like “Amanethes”. I first replied the latter, but now, after listening to it a couple of times more, I believe it’s fair to say that it stands somewhere in-between those two. And it’s not foolish to add that “Wildhoney”’s ghost is lurking in the shadows, lightly haunting Tiamat’s 10th album.

The first half minute of the title-track is quite epic, opening way to a pure gothic rock song, a-la their hit “Brighter Than The Sun”. Then “Winter Dawn” gets darker and deepens in terms of atmosphere, trying out Arabic ambient sounds for a few moments closer to the end.

It’s in “384 Kteis” and then “The Red Of The Morning Sun” that the aforementioned “ghost” thickens and leaves you facing a massive doom chill that runs down your spine, like “Wildhoney” once did.

The guitar work is more elaborate throughout the whole album, “The Sun Also Rises” and “Before Another Wilbury Dies” being its most flagrant evidences. Also “Love Terrorists” or “Messinian Letter” could have been written by Pink Floyd. So there’s this concern of walking along the border of progressive rock without really stepping it over, enhancing the melodies but shaping them into gloomy frames.

Johan Edlund’s voice also sounds better, his usual low tone cleaner and the even lower pitches more under control. So generally speaking, “The Scarred People” screams out greatness in composition, performance and production. Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.«

Label: Napalm Records

Producer: Siggi Bemm

Tracklist:

1. The Scarred People
2. Winter Dawn
3. 384 – Kteis
4. Radiant Star
5. The Sun Also Rises
6. Before Another Wilbury Dies
7. Love Terrorists
8. Messinian Letter
9. Thunder & Lightning
10. Tiznit
11. Born To Die (Lana del Rey cover, digipack bonus track)
12. The Red Of The Morning Sun
13. Paradise (digipack bonus track)
14. Divided (live, digipack bonus track)
15. Cain (live, digipack bonus track)

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