Band:	Yearning
Album:	Evershade
Style:	Atmospheric doom metal, Symphonic gothic metal
Release date:	2003

01. Nocturne
02. Statues Amidst A Frozen Sand Of Time
03. Conditio Humana
04. Aureole
05. Evershade
06. Deathbearer
07. Contemplation
08. A Day When The World Started To Weep

Yearning is a Finnish gothic metal band that has not much to do with the gothic scene of this country. Maybe it is due to the personnality of Juhani Palomaki, who once more wrote the entire album, but Yearning sounds like Yearning, and that's that. Releasing a better album than the grandiloquent Frore Meadow seemed impossible, but here Evershade almost reaches perfection.

Don't be frightened by the first track 'Nocturne', a melodic doom/death introduction of two minutes, it is, with 'Deathbearer' the only song containing death vocals. The rest of the album represents pure beauty coming from the cold depths of Palomaki's heart. The opener 'Statues Amidst a Frozen Sand Of Time', beyond being probably the best song of the album, is a good approach of what this album is, I mean a masterpiece of songwriting that can be compared to the masters of classical music. I am stunned by the fact that only two years have been necesssary to create this album, since its musical profoundness is abyssal. So ok after the first three songs, Evershade becomes more opaque, but after three listenings, you will se that you cannot live without.

The quality of the production has much to do with the quality of this album. What you hear is a wall of guitars, a great work on the melodies and the vocals, with the perfect use of each instrument, in the sense that there is never too much keyboards, for example, but at the same time you never have the impression of an unfinished something. The vocals are also really breathtaking, not only because Palomaki has a very special voice that seems to bear all the weight of the world on his shoulders [you can compare it to Vincent Cavannagh of Anathema], but also because this singing has been sampled and used to create harmonies with sometimes four or five voices together. The result is simply stunning.

The most simple thing in order to know if a gothic album is good is to try to realize the emotions it makes you feel: here the spectrum of feelings is broad, but these are only cold emotions, sadness, despair, the loss of someone you loved, all that makes life so beautiful [just kidding]. I can't say more, this album is perfect, I can't get it out of my cd player. Get it or go to hell.