Band:	Tears Of Mankind
Album:	Memoria
Style:	Doom metal, Gothic metal
Release date:	October 2011

01. Intro
02. In The Embrace Of Eternal Sunshine
03. Deadly Desire
04. Passion Blackfathom Deeps
05. Under The Great Dome
06. So Long And So Recently
07. Pamyat
08. Mayatrik
09. Requiem

Tears Of Mankind are a one man (Phil) melodic death-doom act out of Russia. Phil pumped out a whopping 9 demos before cutting Tears' first album, Without Ray of Hope in 2006. Memoria marks the fourth Phil full-length? Dude has been pretty busy.

Memoria is pleasant enough - an odd description for a death-doom album, I suppose. It has all the requisite ingredients - instrumental intro, melodic riffs, crushing power chords, quiet interludes, layers of keyboards, growled vocals, yada yada yada. As a wrinkle half the album is in English, half in Russian.

Most the songs on the album are seven to nine minutes in length and, as with the components, the structures also fit what you would expect. All of this made "Under The Dome" an attention grabber? the song is a midpace yet upbeat almost doom via goth-rock flavored track that breaks up any monotony that may have set in with the formulaic songs.

I listened to the album no less than a dozen times over the last couple weeks while trying to write this review. At no point in this process did I think, "Ugh. I have to sit through this. Again? I think I'd rather go play in traffic." However at no point in this process did I find myself particularly fired up at the prospect of listening to Memoria.

All this is part of the reason why this review has taken so long to write. It's a decent album which meets expectations of what I like, but nothing that really blows me away. I don't want to slam the album or come across as negative, as I certainly do not dislike it? it's good? but just not terribly evocative in a genre based on pushing harsh emotions.

For those looking at perhaps getting in to slightly more extreme doom, this might be a decent starting point as it has the components, isn't particularly abrasive or terrifying, and at least is more kvlt than picking up one of the Big Three.