Lake Of Tears - Illwill

Four Years after the release of the awesome “Moons And Mushrooms” the Swedish act Lake Of Tears strike back with a stunning new album that nobody expected. Then again Lake Of Tears was always a band keen on experimenting with various sounds and music genres keeping the quality of their songs to the highest level. That’s the reason why is quite difficult to compare their albums since each of them has its unique character. “Illwill”, with its amazing cover artwork, introduces a new perspective of Lake Of Tears, away from their doom metal influences, stripped of their gloomy melodies and deprived electro elements of their previous releases they manage to produce an incredibly heavy album. This album is far from the devastating feeling of “Crimson cosmos”, as is far from the dark melancholic mood of “Forever Autumn”, here the compositions are heavier than ever reaching even the limits of black metal (listen to “Midnight Madness”). “Floating In Darkness” kicks in with its fast rhythm paving the way for the other songs that follow its lead until things calm down a bit with “House Of The Setting Sun” a classic Lake Of Tears song with a bleak melody while “Behind The Green Door” that follows introduces a more gothic approach especially on the vocals and one of the best lead parts ever written ending the song. “Parasites” could have been a Motorhead composition while in “Midnight Madness” where they are flirting with Black Metal they reminded me a lot of Satyricon with Daniel Brennare’s vocals having that Blackish mystical sound.
\r\nConcluding, “Illwill” might not be the album I expected from Lake Of Tears but this doesn’t mean that is not a very decent release that, given enough time, will unveil its value. After all this has always been the Lake Of Tears way.  
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\r\nDimitris Karantounias\r\n