01. Trapped Under Ground
02. Bid You Farewell
03. Ghost Of A Shepherd
04. Portal
05. In My Dreams
06. Mare Of The Night
07. The Whitechapel Murderer
08. Across The Dark River

Below is a triumphant re-imagining of the traditional and root elements of doom. What it lacks in originality, it wholly makes up for with quality in both songwriting and production. From the very beginning the album presents us with its dominating feature, a despondent and and eerie atmosphere filled with Candlemass and Sabbath-esque riffs. Amid the familiarity of its music however, lies something extremely enjoyable in its structure and delivery. The vocals of Sebastian "Zeb" Jansson are a melding pot of Bruce Dickinson and Harry Conklin theatrics, with the foreboding delivery that Dio is known for, without sounding like a clone of any of them. Zeb delivers his lyrics of haunting's, live burials, ghost stories, apparitions, and the river styx with languid grace. A few carefully and well thought out spots in the album feature bright vocal harmonies, that really only stand out because of their scarcity, making the emphasis of their words much more impacting, and I quite loved this element for this reason. It left me wanting, and made me listen to such songs as my personal favorite, "Mare of the Night", over and over.

Much like the vocals, the music is simply lethargic even at its most energetic moments, but in a very appealing and accessible way. Across the Dark River takes its time for sure, and despite its average length of 45 minutes it feels like a 60 minute album. The albums slow pace may be off putting, although avid doom fans should have no problem with it, someone who may be interested in it for its much more traditional sound may find it a bit troublesome to sit through because they may feel like they have heard this before. The guitar leads are laid back and never quite the dominating feature at any point, even Andy LaRocque's contribution to "Ghost of a Shepherd" is a rather tame affair, but aptly placed and performed (he also produced the album). The drums, while admittedly simple and not too diverse, perform their job and fit in to accompany the rest of the music perfectly.

Though I truly love this album, if even just for its somewhat modern approach to something familiar I love, I feel it lacks a bit something that could truly make it an exceptional album, and that's contrast. The album has a few moments of somber guitars, sullen music and different dynamics; but for the most part the whole album is firing on exactly the same point the whole time. While I do love that point, and with doom I hesitate to fault anything for something like that, I feel like a bit more experimentation with these elements would of produced a stupendous album. But for a debut, I think a great album is by no means a failure, and this album does exactly what it set out to do, remarkably well.

Performance:	9
Songwriting:	9
Originality:	6
Production:	9