Back in the early 90's, THERGOTHON unmercifully paved the way for the foundations of Funeral Doom with their ultra-kvlt demo "Fhtagn Nagn Yog-Sothoth" and single full-length, "Stream From The Heavens." I don't know what happened after that, but within the year vocalist Niko Sirkiä and drummer Jori Sjüroos disbanded the group and kept on with THIS EMPTY FLOW. Anyone familiar with THERGOTHON will recognize that the band was probably the most evil- and ominous-sounding in the history of evil- and ominous-sounding things, but expecting THIS EMPTY FLOW to continue in a similar vein would be a huge mistake. Yes, this is dark and it is even a bit ominous, but Funeral Doom this is not. What is it? New wave Gothic Rock, a la THE CURE, DEPECHE MODE and even a bit of MODERN ENGLISH.

At several times throughout this two-disc set, I expected the vocalist to bust out with "I'll stop the world and melt with you," or go into a cover of THE CURE's "Love Song." I don't mean that to come off as a bad thing, mind you - the music on here is absolutely gorgeous. If someone where to somehow transcribe the emotions released by a long fretful sigh on a rainy day, it would sound a lot like what we've got here. THIS EMPTY FLOW pulls off the perfect mix of depressing but accessible and upbeat music I've heard in quite some time.

Despite the title of this collection, what we have here isn't an album per se. Well, Disc One is - it's a remastered version of the band's 1996 debut, "Magenta Skycode." Disc Two, on the other hand, dubbed "Magenta Lost," consists of a multitude of unreleased tracks recorded between 1994 and 1996. The styles of the two discs are quite similar, though the production on "Magenta Lost" is much rougher and gets progressively worse as the disc plays on. Sadly, this hurts the experience - whereas bad productive can be a virtue or at least excusable in some of our beloved forms of Metal, it takes a good bit away from what you here in this style of music.

If you go into "The Album" expecting superb Gothic Rock in the manner of THE CURE, you will surely be one satisfied customer. In fact, unless you come into this with expectations of Lovecraftian Doom played at a snail's pace, it's just hard not to enjoy this record. (Online May 22, 2006)