Review of Beseech - Sunless Days

The goth rock style is fraught with mediocrity and repetition, so when tasked with reviewing an album of the genre, it’s always a pleasure when the album in hand is from Beseech, perhaps the most consistently solid band that the genre has to offer. They feature all the goth rock ingredients that fans and detractors have come to expect – male vocals, female vocals, piano, industrial overtones, etc., but Beseech are masters of balancing everything tastefully.

Beseech continue down the path embarked upon with 2004’s Drama release, which saw an industrial influence emerge that wasn’t nearly as prevalent on their prior works. Both singers turn in a fine performance, Erik has a well-suited droning voice, kind of like Peter Steele, but not as deep. Lotta sounds well-trained with a sweet high voice that will remind newcomers to the scene of Cristina from Lacuna Coil and Amy from Evanescence. Oddly, no one in the band pulls double-duty on instruments, so there are actually seven full-time members, including the two singers, two guitarists, keys, bass, and a drummer, which seems excessive for the amount of music that is produced. Perhaps it is necessary to have that many creative inputs when making music that is at once both solemn and uplifting.

They do a commendable job in varying the tempo from song-to-song. Album opener “Innerlane” is a dark affair with chords heavier than most anything they’ve done in awhile. Then the following song, “The Outpost” is a standard entry for the genre, with melodious piano over stock chords, like something Entwine would write, although the female vocals add another dimension. “Bittersweet Tragedy” introduces artificial electronic melodies to an already dreary song, and the results are great. Then we have “Lost” which is a pure piano ballad in the vein of Sarah McLachlan. Well I’ll pass on that, but some of you girls out there may dig it? The last song of note is “Last Obsession” which is just a nice all-around song. A little dark, a little hopeful, a little heavy…a good radio song if American rock stations would pull their heads out of the rears.

Overall, Sunless Days is another solid effort, about up there with Drama, even if it doesn’t quite have standouts like “Higher Level” and “Addicted”. Fans of the goth rock/metal genre have probably come to expect this kind of performance from Beseech by now, but if you’re new to them, this is a fine album to start with. Surprise, surprise…more good metal from Sweden.

Release Details

Beseech

Sunless Days

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