Look, I’m not familiar with the previous releases from German goth metallers beyond the void, but according to the promo material, they got rave reviews for some of their output.

I can, to some extent, hear why, but, as you can see from the 70/100 rating above, my reception of ‘Gloom is a Trip for two’ is lukewarm.

It does start out nicely, though. Hard and heavy entrance to the album with the track Her Dive Into Midnight. It’s metal, it’s goth, it’s alright.

The sound is impeccable, the music overall tightly played, but, but, the fine line between coolness and the contrived is crossed just enough by vocalist Daniel Pharos to turn me off.

It’s not as if the inspirations aren’t in place: I can hear large portions of Paradise Lost (check out the title track that starts out with a typical PL intro and Hateworld in particular where Pharos does his best to do a Nick Holmes), Type O Negative (the goth pieces, naturally), Moonspell (ditto) and even Rammstein (listen to parts of the track Faminine).

The scene is from the outset set for good things, but it doesn’t quite work out.

Acceptable output, but not really there.