I've been waiting for this ever since I fell in love with Timo's vision for '90s doom on Infirmum's debut, Walls of Sorrow, and with only the killer but brief little EP The Great Unknown to tide me over, my expectations were growing ravenous. Now that I've sat down with it, I can say that my expectations were all well met, because From the Depths I Cried is the logical evolution of the debut with more refined and versatile songwriting that deftly balances heaviness and mood better than before, perhaps in part due to the project becoming a full band effort. The closest comparison I can make is the later styling of My Dying Bride, albeit heavier and with the lovely clean vocals of Sabine Blodwin to lighten the mood as needed. That's not to say this band has started mellowing out, for the bulk of the vocals are still the growls and shrieks of Taka Eliel, and you even get faster, violent sections, such as the almost Slayer-esque riffing of "Burn." In the end, however, this is all about slow, melancholic doom that's too depressed to notice anything past the '90s and early 2000s even happened to the genre, and as always, Timo approaches it with passion for the craft and executes it with the expertise of a true craftsman. A worthy work in what's shaping up to be a career full of them.
