Band:	Avatarium
Album:	The Fire I Long For
Style:	Doom metal
Release date:	November 22, 2019
A review by:	nikarg

01. Voices
02. Rubicon
03. Lay Me Down
04. Porcelain Skull
05. Shake That Demon
06. Great Beyond
07. The Fire I Long For
08. Epitaph Of Heroes
09. Stars They Move

Avatarium is no longer the side project of one particular man named Leif Edling, but is now driven forward by the core duo of vocalist Jennie-Ann Smith and guitarist, songwriter, producer, and husband Marcus Jidell (The Doomsday Kingdom, ex-Evergrey, ex-Soen). The Fire I Long For marks a return to the band's doomier sound, following the more upbeat Hurricanes And Halos.

Nuclear Blast promoted this album by calling it 'dark gospel', and this is one of the rare occasions that a label actually nails it with a press release. Still, the best description one could give was provided by the most famous / infamous figure of this website who called it 'adult-oriented doom' (a term borrowed from adult-oriented rock or AOR).

The album is indeed demonstrating the softer side of Avatarium, either with ballads such as the country-tinged "Lay Me Down" and the melancholic title track or with the '70s retro rocking single "Rubicon" and the band's homage to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" in "Great Beyond". The heaviest cuts are the two -out of three in total- tracks written by Edling; "Porcelain Skull" is based upon riffs and bass notes taken straight from Candlemass's playbook and only gets lighter when its organ-filled chorus is heard and when the lead guitar soars in the outro, while "Epitaph Of Heroes" is also riff-centric and generally adopts a more occult vibe.

The thing with The Fire I Long For is that even though it is remarkably good in the songwriting department, boasting a weighty guitar tone, a distinctive bass rumble and some dazzling organ parts (especially in "Voices"), it wouldn't be half as good with another singer. Jennie-Ann Smith's voice overflows the album with warmth, passion, seductiveness, sadness and pain all at the same time and it is this very gifted woman that accentuates the music's spellbinding atmosphere, be it in the rocking tunes, the sensitive ballads or the epic Swedish doom tracks.

Avatarium's fourth full-length oozes maturity, not in the sense of it being watered down, but in the way a bottle of exquisite wine is left in the cellar for a long time and is only opened when it is ready to reveal all of its aroma and taste. And it is the doom rocker I was longing for to close what has been a magnificent year for the doomier side of metal.

"No leaves on the trees
Flowers made of stone
Just a cold bitter wind
Blowing through my bones"