Greece has always been a productive country for the European metal scene. Acts such as Rotting Christ, Nightfall and Septic Flesh have managed to stay at the front of the scene for more than a decade, although they have never been frontrunners of any genre.

On Thorns I Lay is probably my favorite Greek band, although I don’t like their debut album Sounds Of Beautiful Experience at all, while their second Orama left me quite indifferent at the time. However, with the release of their beautiful third album Crystal Tears the band took a new beginning, at least for me. That album is probably one the sweetest atmospheric gothic metal releases of all time. Anyway, at that time the band had a consistent line-up with a genuine female vocalist, one of those voice you can never stop listening to. Alas the bandmembers went separate ways due to medical studies and other business activities. The band managed next to release two albums different one from another. Future Narcotic was very different from its predecessor while Angeldust was definitely a return to their Crystal Tears era.

Now the band returns with Egocentric which is already their sixth album. This album continues where Angeldust left off. Gothic metal with atmospheric touches. The danger with atmospheric gothic metal is that sometimes the music stagnates and fails to enchant the audience. That’s exactly what happened with Kemet’s The Night Before which I reviewed a week ago. And that’s also what happens with this album. The music on this album seems to hold its breath and not move on, as if it was stuck in space or time. Sometimes the music tends to reach the level of what has been done on their previous records, but then what is good just seems to vanish. The other problem I have with this album is more or less the same I had with Kemet’s. The male vocals tend to become repetitive and exhausting after a while. Male vocalists don’t have the same ability as females have. Whereas a female vocalist is able to variate her tones and intensity, a male vocalist just seems to be able to change the intonation of his voice, which becomes annoying. The result is that after the first half of the album you just find yourself wondering outside of the album and doing something totally different.

It’s definitely a difficult task to remain constant album after album and very few bands manage to do that. Alas for On Thorns I Lay their constant back and forth musical trips seem to weaken their music.