Band: Isole
Title: Silent Ruins
Label: Napalm Records
Distribution: Rough Trade Benelux
Release date: 27/02/2009
Review: CD

The Swedish formation Isole started in 1991 under the moniker Forlorn. As Forlorn, the band didn’t release anything official, except for a compilation-album, featuring material from the different demo tapes and promos the band recorded. As from 2004 however, the new moniker seemed to implicate a positive evolution, because since then things went well for Isole. The band was able to sign to I Hate Records (which resulted in the release of three official albums) and after that contract came to an end, the band got signed by Austrians number-one Metal label Napalm Records. In January last year, Bliss Of Solitude was released, and now there is the second Napalm-album, Silent Ruins, which lasts for almost fifty four minutes.
Musically, the band evolved again. Still Isole stands for a very epic and atmospheric version of Doom, but more than before, the band seems to look for an own face – and they have found it. In the past, Isole was very comparable to, especially, Candlemass and Solstice. I guess for a little part this still is the case, but Silent Ruins is influenced by these bands; Isole do not copy these formations anymore. The traditional Doom-elements are pretty open-minded, yet without morphing into some ridiculous neo-progressive stuff, and the epic and dark approach makes this creation exceed the ‘average’ Doom-aspects from the past. Besides, the atmosphere is pretty obscure and chilly, yet melancholic at the same time. And the few tempo-changes (from slow to even slower) and melody-variations aren’t but completing the album. The band even seems to introduce a modest Doom-Death-approach, meaning: Anathema gets injected into the nightly coldness.
Even though the band seems to evolve into its own Doom-definition, I guess especially fans of Candlemass, Solitude Aeternus, Ereb Altor, Solstice, While Heaven Wept, Trouble, Mirror Of Deception or Orodruin will appreciate this album.

82/100

Ivan Tibos.