Time Signature
Finality...
Genre: power metal / epic doom metal
While Heaven Wept can be hard to categorize genre-wise. On this album, they draw on power metal and epic doom metal, sprinkling the outcome with progressive elements. The songs ar epic and grandiose, but epic doom metal is not exactly a new thing; I mean, Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus have been doing it for years. But while the two giants are on the doomier end of the scale, While Heaven Wept are more solidly placed at the power metal end.
The first couple of tracks are uptempo power metal tracks, and it's only in the third track "Obsessions Now Effigies" that some proper doom metal kicks in before that song takes on a higher tempo, too. Interestingly, the opening track sounds like a blend of epic power metal and symphonic melodic black metal - it's pretty good though. The first proper doom metal song is the penultimate track "Saturn and Sacrifice", and that track is very good - a prime example of epic doom metal, as is the 11+ minutes closer "Finality".
Although I think that this album is more in the power metal department, it does capture the melancholy and oppressive atmosphere of doom metal all the way through, and my only point of criticism is that the album could be more balanced by having the tracks more shuffled rather than having all the uptempo tracks in the first half and all the doomy tracks in the second half.
All in all, this is an excellent piece of melancholic and epic metal which takes the best from power metal and epic doom metal.