Band:	Secrets Of The Sky
Album:	To Sail Black Waters
Style:	Black metal, Doom metal
Release date:	October 2013

01. Winter
02. Decline
03. Sunrise
04. Black Waters

Secrets Of The Sky takes heavy doses of sludge metal, gives them a black metal flare, and mixes in a complexity that will instantly appeal to fans of Opeth, Enslaved, and Emperor; and they aren't even done yet. They carry out notes in a soul-crushingly doom metal fashion while still managing to have a groove that could almost be mistaken as catchy. The growls are powerful, the clean vocals are enchanting, and the music is consistently moving in new directions and blowing your mind with each move. To Sail Black Waters was released on the same label as Be'lakor's Stone's Reach and I have no idea how it isn't receiving a similar level of acclaim.

If I can be accused of anything in this life it is that I love music more than pretty much anything else. It would not be unrealistic to say I have heard over a thousand albums in my life and own a significant chunk of those in one form or another. The point here is that I have become incredibly hard to impress because once you've heard the best bands a genre has to offer it is hard to get excited by those who are merely "good". To Sail Black Waters didn't only impress me, it instantly became one of the best albums I have ever heard. Every time I give it a spin I expect the album to be dulled by my own internal hype, that it can't possibly be as good as I remember it to be, yet every time it only gets better.

= In Short = I feel like I am listening to some of the greatest music in existence and somehow no one else was ever told about it. It's like being on the coolest island in the world with no one around to enjoy it with me. It is an absolute travesty that Secrets Of The Sky aren't considered pioneers of an entirely new and amazing future in metal. It is an even bigger travesty that their magnum opus, To Sail Black Waters, has been all but forgotten already. I hope you will all join me in listening to To Sail Black Waters and spreading the good word so that Secrets Of The Sky can receive the acclaim they rightfully deserve.