I don't get to review that many CD's from Greece. Whether this is a sign that the Greeks, unlike our brothers in metal from Italy and Spain, have not yet discovered our humble webzine, or that there is simply very little going on down there, I do not know. But fact is that it is nice to hear signs of the Hellenistic darkness, even if they are rare.

Signs of life, you could argue, is paradoxical expression in this connection. For the Athens sextet Shattered Hope plays doom metal - and the kind of doom metal that sports a death metal growl in the foreground. We move in the neighbourhood of My Dying Bride, early Paradise Lost and my countrymen Saturnus. Thomas Jensen from the latter-mentioned outfit has even lent his hard tested vocal chords to the song A Traitor's Kiss on this CD.

The songs of the self-releashed 'Absence' range from two and a half minutes to impressive 18-minute and 13-minute epic tracks of sombre darkness. Unlike e.g. Griftegård's popular, but ultra-slow and not-at-all-varied doom metal, Shattered Hope have, I think, a lot more to offer in the shape of tons of breaks, melodic soli, pianos, cello pieces, time changes and a bunch of other good things. This is a doom band that has double bass drums - and they're not afraid to use them!

After the more than eight-minute slow doom monster Enlighten the Darkness, then, suddenly the Greeks throw, Yearn an slightly up-tempo thrash-inspired piece with underlying keyboards at us. Brilliant! This is exactly what someone like me needs after more than twenty minutes of slow doom! Variation!

Keep it coming, Greece, this is good stuff!