Band:	Greyswan
Album:	Thought-Tormented Minds
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	2003
A review by:	Undercraft

01. Thought-Tormented Minds
02. Questions
03. Sleepless Night
04. Lost Smiles
05. This Gloomy Sickness
06. We'll Never Be
07. Witness Of A Better Time
08. Afraid To Go On, Afraid To Come Back

Just when you thought you knew the Metal scene, there's always something that surprises you, and damn! I'm a happy man, god knows I was growing tired of seeing that every single damn Gothic Metal band is hailing from Finland, somewhere someone must have heard my prayers and delivered some talent to 5 guys from Italy, thus, Greyswan was created.

First, this is the first release of the new sub-label of Cold Blood Industries, called Ebony Tears, and what a great release to be the first one of a new label! Greyswan delivers pure emotional gloomy Metal with this "Though-Tormented Minds", the music done by these guys is very hard to describe, while not so far from the Finnish Gothic Metal school (HIM, Charon, Entwine etc) for moments reminds me of Katatonia and Anathema.

The music is mostly mid-tempo tunes, but done gracefully melancholic, the vocals of Oscar are so deep and sorrowful, from the opener track "Questions" you're in for a mournful journey. The album has a lot of good songs like "This Gloomy Sickness" , "Afraid To Go On, Afraid To Come Back" and my personal favorite, "Sleepless Night" song that was in their previous Demo, that I was graced to listen a while ago, before they got signed. If they included this song in their full-length, It would have great to include "Alone Among Thousands Of People" another great song from their Demo, but you can't have everything in life right?

While some people may say that this album is too slow and down-tempo, never gets boring, mostly for the fantastic vocal work, the lyrics are also dark and dismal, perfect combination. Maybe a couple of more faster tracks could have uplifted things, but I think that wasn't the intention of the band, also, check out the cover art because is awesome, and so is it the inside layout of the booklet.

Like I was saying, I'm very happy, because Gothic Metal is finally diversifying and traveling to other countries, who knows, maybe some day we'll hear some quality Gothic Metal from my beloved South America.