A friend of mine called me up and asked, “Dude, have you heard the new Dark Suns album?” to which I promptly responded that there was no new Dark Suns album, and if there had been, I’d have been the first to get it. Determined to prove me wrong, he bought me this album, All Ends in Silence, by Dark the Suns.

Obviously, these are two different bands, and he was wrong anyway. After laughing in his face for a solid 10 minutes, I decided to plop the disc in for a listen, and do some research on the band. Dark the Suns was formed about 5 years ago as a personal project of Mikko Ojala, who serves as the lead guitarist and vocalist. This is the band’s, and yes now they are a full band, sophomore release, and unfortunately I have not heard the debut to compare it to, but from what I have read about it, there hasn’t been much progress made.

The album opens with Unbroken Silence , which is perhaps the best track on the disc. Immediately, an ultra-melodic if somewhat contrived guitar riff pushes the song along its radio-friendly length. This song reminds me of Dark Tranquility’s Projector album, though its nowhere near as memorable. Still, this song is far from being boring, mostly thanks to its tempo and the fact that the guitars are at the forefront (something that is, unfortunately, uncommon for this CD).

After this, the album goes downhill. None of the songs are bad, but all are formulaic and extremely similar. I honestly could not tell where the track Everlasting ended and where The Dead End began. This was the pattern for most of the songs, except Rimed With Frost and Guardians which strayed slightly from the mid-tempo gothic feel of the rest of the tracks.

Something present on this album that was not, apparently, on the debut is female vocals. Even that, however, is a very predictable step to have been taken by the band, given the Gothic brand of Melodic Metal they play. Whats more is that these female vocals, performed by the band’s bassist Inka, are totally bland. Luckily, they’re in the background on most songs but Guardians would have been more enjoyable without the female leads.

Dark the Suns are good at what they do—well, probably mediocre at what they do—but they’re also the reason I don’t really listen to this style of music. The majority of it is predictable and generic. The only band I can really say I enjoy that kind of played this was Sentenced, and their songs/albums were far more original and enjoyable. If you’re into this sort of thing, you won’t find much to dislike here. If you’re not, you won’t find much to like.