adg211288 Across the Dark River (2014) is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish doom metal act Below. The band includes a couple of members from heavy metal act Malison Rogue in its line-up. Having only formed in 2012 their only prior release is the two track split with their fellow Swedish doomsters Anguish, released in 2013. Their song that appeared on the split, Trapped Under Ground, opens Across the Dark River. Not even a full year later and here are Below with their debut album, for Metal Blade Records. Quite a lot of achieved in a short time.

Below's music is played fairly by the book of traditional/epic doom to my ears. That means a slow pace, strong clean singing and reasonably long songs for the most part, with very few surprises. Over the course of the album's eight tracks (which includes a short interlude piece) the band does take their listeners through various different doom moods though, giving Across the Dark River variation. A few choice words to describe different parts of the album would be atmospheric, melancholic and even downright menacing, as is the case with the chorus of Portal. The music is well played and I'm especially impressed with the way singer Zeb's voice really helps define the music and its moods.

The guys could use some honing as songwriters though, as even though the ideas on Across the Dark River are very impressive it doesn't always sound that the band are making the most of, or justifying, the track durations, only two of which are under the five minute mark and that includes the 35 second interlude In My Dreams. A track that strikes me as having great yet unfulfilled potential is Portal. I mentioned this one in the last paragraph as sounding particularly menacing in its chorus; the way Zeb delivers that deep in the woods lyric is very powerfully done, but things lose their effect when you hear the chorus so many times during the song's 6:22 running time. The album as a whole is of an average length at 45:32 but all the same it feels like it needs both a bit of trimming and then fleshing out again with additional ideas.

Below have certainly shown here that they have what it takes to be an amazing doom metal act and Across the Dark River is an enjoyable enough debut offering from them. Considering that their only prior release together was the one track contributed to their split with Anguish I'd say that despite the issues they've done pretty well here and I look forward to hearing how they improve as songwriters. 3.5 stars.

72/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/below-across-the-dark-river-t3542.html)