SERVANTS TO THE TIDE – “Where time will come to die” (2024)

Fans of the Epic Doom Metal style already had reasons to be happy this year, as we have got new music from ACHELOUS and CRYPT SERMON. Germany’s SERVANTS TO THE TIDE give us another reason to rejoice, as their sophomore effort is here, after a three year gap from their debut.

What do they bring to the table? Loyalty to the sound they have chosen to represent. Remaining unmoved by the modern trends that demand short durations, this album fits 50 mins of music on just seven songs, with each having the time it needs for its ideas to unfold as they should. Need we say how the guitars sound or what the prevalent tempo is? The genre’s trademarks are respected, so I do not believe it is needed. 

I must say that this category of Metal is a hit or miss for me. I do not universally like every good album that it creates, but SERVANTS TO THE TIDE managed to win this battle. Their ability to craft great vocal melodies is what did it for me. Every track is excelling on that aspect, with vocal lines being high above the average. Expanding on that, an equally great job has been done on the backing choirs that are responsible for enhancing the epic feeling of the record.

The instrumental part may not claim any innovation prize, but this was never a requirement, especially not when execution is done well from the whole team, like in our case. There are still some spices though, namely the use of Piano at the later half of the tracklist. If we bring the discussion on select songs, I would have to choose our prologue ‘With Starlight We Ride’ for giving us a good idea of what we can expect and the more than ten minutes ‘If The Stars Should Appear’. Huge outsider was the enchanting ballad ‘Towards Zero’!

As a fact before we close, I must confess that I was not planning to dive or review this record. Once I received the promo, I decided to give the opening track a chance out of curiosity, since I had not encountered the band before. What I heard was good right from the start, not only it maintained my attention, but I wanted to come back for more after that. In my book, this is the characteristic of a job well done!   

“Where Time Will Come To Die” bid me farewell with positive impressions, and with it being just the band’s second album, it seems we must add SERVANTS TO THE TIDE to the list of artists that must stay within our radars from now on.

80/100

Pavlos Pavlakis