SUFFERION - HAMARTIA OF PRUDENCE (E)

Sufferion - Hamartia Of Prudence is the third full-length studio album by the Finnish melodic gothic doom band Silentium. It's both a concept album and a theatrical piece of music, produced by no one less than Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish). The story is about two lovers, Antracon and Prudence, tempted and misleaded one after the other by the demon Scoria to give up their soul in exchange for eternity and salvation from pain and agony. A very sad love story indeed, partly spoken and partly sung. The uneven tracks are text only, the even tracks - together about 51 minutes - are sung with both female vocalists W. Lilith and Maija Turunen (Lullacry) and male vocalist Matti Aikio, who is also responsible for all the lyrics. The music is mainly written by keyboardist Sami Boman. Because of the spoken parts, Jani Laaksonen's violin, the great production by Holopainen and the constantly changing atmosphere this album is truly remarkable. In some way it reminds me of Liaison De La Morte by Cirrha Niva. It takes courage to release an album in this genre with a theatrical impact. Don't expect abundant solos since this album is focused on the female vocals duelling with male vocals and grunts, and the massive instrumentation with its huge and heavy guitar sound and alternated by very mellow and tasteful bits, in which piano and violin dominate. I must confess, however, that I played this record once by programming only the even tracks and I must admit I liked it better this way! Maybe I'm not much in theatre or maybe I don't like the Finnish accent in their Shakespearian way of speech. Dark Whispers is the most important song that lasts almost nine minutes has it all: a classical opening with keyboards supporting a piano and a violin, then heavy orchestrations and guitar riffs plus a combination of female vocals, grunts and later on male vocals as with Anathema: superb gothic metal, with a delightful originality. In spite of the fact this kind of music - especially the grunts- doesn't belong to my favourites, but I still think that in its genre it is a very good album indeed.