GREAT SORROW - Dreams...Solitude, Silence (Castle Rock, 1995)

Taking a break from Moscow, this time we travel to the Northen Capital with the second LP by Great Sorrow, from beautiful St. Petersburg. Great Sorrow formed in 1990 and are still a band today. A guy I traded with in Russia said that he thinks this LP might be the last record ever pressed in Russia. That's possible, and I think it would be pretty cool if this was true, then the last record to ever be pressed in Russia would be a pretty sick doom LP. Outside of Black Sabbath and maybe Rainbow or something I really don't know enough about 70's rock or psych music to accurately reference and compare this sort of stuff. I guess this is stoner/doom metal with some touches of death (mainly in the image dept.). It's not really heavy, but sporadic double bass is sprinkled in a couple of places along with some heavy-ish riffs and bass. Overall the music here is pretty slow and totally lives up to the title: Dreams...Solitude, Silence (save for the "silence" part perhaps). The vocals drone on in an epic, gloomy, ominous tone. However, one thing that mars this record is the fact that while as I noted the vocalist has a good tone to his voice, he happens to also have a very thick accent and all the songs are in English. If they would have just written the songs in Russian, I think that would've been better. I don't know though, perhaps some people will find the accent cool?

The Moan In Time
The Preludy Of Tears
All My Belief
The Wanderer
If You Run Away From...
The Endless Tragedy
Dreams...Solitude, Silence