So another band go for big label and put a more mainstreamy album.
You just cant do that with atmospheric black.
Sounds too clean for me and with that overproduction just sounds wrong.
Shame because the album before this one was epic.

I was REALLY excited from their promo song The Deluge, as it was easily in my favourites from them. However, i feel the rest of the album doesn't quite stack up to it sadly. It's fairly decent, but it certainly doesn't really grab my attention strongly.

Good decent album balance between male and female vocals, boat are in eual level eaual % singing time what makes it good, but somehow it seems can go a bit to ambient Summoning direction later, some songs were a bit soft ... otherwise good piece

I really liked their 2 previous albums but this new one is way too cheesy for my taste and when it's not cheesy it's just generic. Overall pretty disappointing.

The Shadowed Road was a really good album. While I expected growth between there and here, this completely blows me away. "The Deluge" may be the best song of the year. It just soars, and soars, and soars ever higher. "Talas" is a really strong, if not especially metal, song. That being said, many of the best metal bands blur lines between genres so the song still fits, even if its not the adrenaline filled rampage the average teen metal head wants. The rest of the album is just very insightful and creative. "The Event Horizon" is another great song. It feels a bit like a requiem at times, and just carries through quite strongly. The album would be highly recommended for fans of Saor, Eluveitie, Panopticon, and the ilk.

TL;DR, young, angry metal heads probably won't like the album (I wouldn't at that age), but older listeners will surely enjoy the album for years to come.

Written by 666tipex666 on 09.05.2020 at 21:54

So another band go for big label and put a more mainstreamy album.
You just cant do that with atmospheric black.
Sounds too clean for me and with that overproduction just sounds wrong.
Shame because the album before this one was epic.

Well said about this album. Cannot tell this is a bad album buy neither good also in terms of creativity. They took the path of Nightwish to soft and smooth songs which you could keep as a background music anytime. All songs with same tempo and same feel. Real disappointment from last outing.

Thanks for the kind words, but I also see the points made regarding the criticism too!

It's kind of weird to comment all this time later, but I was just reading some reviews out of curiosity. I agree, it's definitely the weakest Sojourner album, but I wouldn't chalk it up to signing to Napalm (they had zero input into anything thankfully). It's more a case of the album being written during a very weird time for all of us, I definitely rushed quite a few of the songs and I think in retrospect The Deluge (and Fatal Frame + The Event Horizon) are tracks I'm still proud of, but there are definitely some glaringly weak points on this album. To me, it's the summary of a really bad time in life and a bit of a rushed album in places (...we all despise the track Atonement particularly).

All in all, definitely our weakest album by a long shot. I've been writing the new album for the last few months and I feel good about the new material, it's a lot more in line with the first two albums but with the better elements we aimed for with tracks like The Deluge. Thanks for the review!

Written by sojournermike on 13.07.2023 at 22:22

All in all, definitely our weakest album by a long shot. I've been writing the new album for the last few months and I feel good about the new material, it's a lot more in line with the first two albums but with the better elements we aimed for with tracks like The Deluge.

Sadly I've not yet listened to this album, I remember it being released, during which time it was high on my agenda, but for some reason or another I never got round to listening to it. I thought the album previous album to this (The Shadowed Road) was good, but the debut (Empires Of Ash) was truly exceptional stuff indeed! So I'm really looking forward to hearing your latest material. Now, in the meantime I must check this album out already.

Well it seems like I'm against the current on this one, this is by far my favourite Sojourner album. I read cheesy and mainstream and I go "LOL, what ?!". This has a great atmosphere and a great sound from my perspective. Maybe it's just a part of atmo black that talks to me and not most.