Band:	Lacrimas Profundere
Album:	Ave End
Style:	Gothic metal, Gothic rock
Release date:	June 28, 2004
A review by:	KwonVerge

01. One Hope's Evening
02. Ave End
03. To Bleed Or Not To Be
04. Sarah Lou
05. Amber Girl
06. Testified
07. Astronautumn
08. Evade
09. Wake Down
10. Black
11. Come, Solitude
12. Ever [bonus]

Lacrimas Profundere, I met this band with their previous release, the turning point of their sound, "Fall, I will follow", and I can say I was really excited with the way they were flirting with gothic metal. After "Fall, I will follow" I felt an urge to search the past of the band and after having listened to "La naissance d'un Reve" and "Memorandum", two really wonderful and inspired doom metal releases, I couldn't understand why they changed their style and chose to walk in gothic rock/metal soundscapes.

2004 finds Lacrimas Profundere with a new album, "Ave End", softer than "Fall, I will follow" but definitely emotional and inspired. The gothic rock influences are obvious and the structure of the songs refers to the groovy rhythm of gothic rock and the metal feeling because of the really good and clear production and the heavier distortion of the guitars making "Ave End" a really wonderful gothic rock/metal release. Before I continue I would like to make one thing clear, Lacrimas Profundere have nothing to do with HIM (except maybe for Christopher's appearance) as some people tend to believe; well, I am a huge HIM fan and I can inform you that that the structure of Lacrimas Profundere's songs is way more complex and different from HIM's compositions, even the vocals of Christopher are way different from Valo's since Christopher sings in his very own way. Let your soul float in a world of emotions?

"Ave End" opens with a beautiful-sounding composition with bittersweet piano pieces and melancholic guitar chords accompanying Christopher's melancholic interpretation. The title-track, "Ave End", continues the album in an emotional and inspired way; wonderful guitar riffing and melodic piano-sounding keyboard melodies overrun the whole song as Christopher interprets in a unique manner the wonderful lyrics. The album goes on with "To Bleed or not to be", a heavier composition and definitely another wonderful song to slowly reach "Sarah Lou", one of the highlights of the album, an emotionally fortified song with up-tempo riffing (up-tempo always for the terms of the genre) accompanying Christopher's melodic and descriptive voice.

"Amber Girl" lets the album flow and guess what, it is another fabulous song with atmosphere-evoking synth-born melodies and inspired guitar work paving the way for Christopher to show his impressive vocal abilities. "Testified" follows and it is a beautiful-sounding melancholic song with desperate sad vocals being accompanied by the emotional guitar chords to reachan up-tempo composition with a weird name, "Astronautumn", in which Christopher shows a more aggressive, distorted though, option of his voice. The album continues in up-tempo rhythm with the interesting "Evade" reaching the melancholic "Wake Down", with both softer moments with sadness-evoking guitar chords and emotional outbursts with heavier riffing and Christopher sounding descriptive as always. "Black, a groovy song with inspired melodies and atmosphere-evoking keyboard ideas follows to reach the end in melancholic tranquility and an Anathema feeling in the air with the emotional "Come, Solitude".

To sum up, if you are a fan of emotional and melodic gothic rock/metal then "Ave End"is an album for you. Lacrimas Profundere seem to have their very own style in the world of gothic, influenced but without copying anyone in particular and this is something that really counts since they are inspired and they rock! All I have to say is that doom metal lost a wonderful band and gothic found a very promising newcomer!