A few days ago, while flipping through the latest copy of Metal Maniacs magazine, I spotted a quick review of "Lust Stained Despair" in the Aural Assaults section. I skipped the article - I don't like having the opinions of other reviewers influence my own reviews. But before I made it to the next page, my eyes passed over the first three words of the review, and I couldn't help but absorb them:

"Ex-Sentenced frontman..."

I didn't read the rest. I didn't need to. Now I knew why I was hearing similarities between Sentenced (a band I've never completely gotten into, but nonetheless enjoy) and Poisonblack. Ville Laihiala, one-time main man of Finland's ­­­wrist-slitting maestros, formed Poisonblack in 2000. While originally simply the project's guitarist, Laihiala took over vocals when previous Poisonblack frontman J.P. Leppäluoto left the band. And suddenly, both bands have (or had) the same voice.

Needless to say, I would have figured it out eventually. But I would rather have discovered this seemingly obvious fact myself, so as to keep it from becoming the focus of this review.

Nonetheless, Poisonblack is still a pretty good gothic metal band, and "Lust Stained Despair" is certainly a good album. This is a disc defined by mid-tempo guitar crunch, dark washes of ambient keyboards, and slightly-edged yet catchy vocals.

In fact, those vocals are what is most striking about Poisonblack. Obviously, Ville Laihiala sounds much as he did in Sentenced, with a voice hovering on the line between melancholy and aggressive. But there is a huge degree of vocal layering on this album, with virtually every track featuring a huge catchy chorus of some sort. It's an odd sound, especially given the otherwise dark, gothic soundscape. Certainly, it helps give Poisonblack a much more accessible sound than would otherwise be the case.

Now the negatives: a bit more rhythmic diversity would have been nice, as every track on "Lust Stained Despair" is in the slow or mid-tempo range. A fast song or two, or even an instrumental track, would help break up the flow of this album, which starts off thoroughly enjoyable but can slip into monotony by the end (thankfully, Poisonblack's second album isn't too long, clocking in at slightly less than fifty minutes). The catchy nature of this album is liable to turn off fans of less melodic, more depressive gothic music, while the abundant use of guitars as rhythm instruments will probably have more than one underground metal elitist calling 'nu metal.' And I'll be damned if "Nail" doesn't begin by ripping off the soundtrack to the Exorcist, only to end up sounding like Dream Theater instead.

Catchy suicide rock? Happy goth metal? Hymns from fallen warriors who expected to awaken in Valhalla, but found themselves in Hel instead? However you want to describe them, Poisonblack are adept at melding heroic vocal harmonies with stripped-down gothic rock and metal. "Lust Stained Despair" is never a happy album. But if you can imagine a suicide rock album that is actually fun to sing along to, you can imagine what Poisonblack sound like.

And now that Sentenced is no more, Laihiala is focusing entirely on Poisonblack. So one can only assume that the band's tertiary release will be their strongest release yet.