While I don't find this album exactly perfect, it is very original and expresses hatred in one of the most intelligent ways possible. This is quite different from Parade Into Centuries, which was basically slow, slightly melodic doom. Macabre Sunsets is fast, ruthless and bitter.
The first song, "Odious," is very fast, and has some black metal-ish riffing as well as a brief section that sounds like one of Morbid Angel's slower songs. The next song, "All My Love is Lost" starts off with a fucking monsterous riff, with some keyboards in the background and a few timpanis as well (this is the type of majestic heaviness that Dimmu Borgir can only DREAM of creating). Nightfall picks up the pace, and changes time signatures quite a few times in this song, making it the best song on the album, except for the blasting section in the middle (more on that later). "As Your God is Failing Once Again" is slower, with some nice melodies, and sounds like something from Parade Into Centuries. The title track isn't that special; just a strange piano piece that has a really uncomfortable feel to it...there's just something about it that seems musically wrong. "Bitterness Leads to My Savior Death" is a really great song, mostly fast, but with some chugging and a nice riff near the end that is repeated under a melody. I especially like how the song slows down to an atmospheric riff near the end, then builds back up before ending. "Mother Of All Gods, Mother Of Mine," "Poetry of Death" and "Enormous" are pretty much mix the fast/slow melodic/harsh elements together, and are all strong songs. There's even a neat tapped solo at the end, bringing in another Morbid Angel comparison. The last song is simply a different version of "As Your God is Failing Once Again." Not that great, but not shit.
Efthimis' vocals are quite good on here. Very harsh, deep and powerful. They resemble Rotting Christ a bit, and have quite a bit of hysteria in them. In a few parts, he growls really low, and it sounds a little too inhuman, but otherwise fitting. What he does get wrong is his pronunciation--it's hard to tell what he's saying, even when reading the booklet, and then he uses Greek once in a while. His bass is in there, somewhere...that's all I can say about that.
The guitar work is nicely done, and mixes a variety of tempos with strange melodies. Sometimes it's a chugging, Deicide-ish sound, which works really well, other times it's doomy. The best material is usually the faster stuff, where they throw in some nice tremolo picking. One of the best parts is when the band is blasting away and there is a very slow melody played over it. I have to say that their melodies are not used to the point of nausea like most Gothenburg/melodic bands nowadays. Mostly, there is heaviness, hatred and speed, which makes it more of a death metal album than anythinge else. On the subject of melodies, Nightfall creates some pretty strange ones, and I can't give a clear example of another band that does that. Chris and Mike are both competent lead guitarists as well, but they only solo a few times, and very briefly.
The element I really, REALLY dislike about this album is the drumming. This Costas character is either non-existant (ie: a drum machine) or he's playing on an electronic kit. Most of the time, you can ignore this, except when they go into total blast speed. The brief blast section in "All My Love is Lost" sounds absolutely TERRIBLE, and messes up an otherwise excellent song.
This is a strange album, but certainly worth having if you can give it a little time to grow on you. It really proves how inventive the Greek scene was in the early '90's.
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