Eternal Tears of Sorrow - Saivon Lapsi
It says something about your band when the most energetic participant on your LP is the keyboard player. Seriously, Saivon Lapsi is a borderline keyboard wanker album. Eternal Tears of Sorrow was once a Melodic Death Metal band, but from what I’m hearing on this record, the guitarists decided to stop writing melodic riffs and let the keyboardist do everything. Outside of a couple explosive solos and a few melodic riffs that could have easily been sampled, the guitarist may as well not have even been there at all. All of the melody and intricate musicianship was coming from keyboardist Janne Tolsa. Jarmo Puolakanaho and Mika Lammassaari seemed to be playing basic “chug-chug-chug” riffs that made them essentially extensions of the bassist. The entire time I was listening to this, I was hoping that they’d start getting heavier, and I also wanted them to incorporate the guitars into the symphonic stuff. None of that ever happened and I was seriously disappointed. I’m not expecting Eternal Tears of Sorrow to suddenly turn into an Atmospheric Doom band in the vein of Eye of Solitude or Mourning Beloveth, but for fuck’s sake, get the guitars in there! If I just wanted to hear keyboards noodle away, I’d listen to Yanni. I’m not bagging on Janne Tolsa. Symphonic keyboard stuff is what he does best and it shows here. In that regard, the keyboard playing on this entire LP is exceptional. What’s really needed is for the rest of the band to be playing at his level. Even though this is album number seven for the band, there’s still room for improvement. Eternal Tears of Sorrow has two guitarists that could be adding additional layers of melody and atmosphere, but they’re simply not. Despite that, Saivon Lapsi is still fairly decent. The vocals and keyboards carry this, but it doesn’t take much to see that there’s a gaping hole in their sound. If Eternal Tears of Sorrow can figure out how to incorporate their guitarists to fill that gap, their next LP could be legendary.
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