Sombre Romantic (2000) Rating: 9/10
    Australia, and particularly Virgin Black's hometown Adelaide, is certainly not renowned for symphonic/gothic/doom fusions, which makes an album of this calibre quite surprising. Virgin Black provide us with an epic montage of austere chamber music metal with powerful interjections of doom and the occasional hint at black metal. Featuring a choir and cello in addition to keyboards, two guitars, bass, drums and the incredible vocals of Rowan London, Sombre Romantic is a very focussed effort towards something quite unique and impressive, something that the term "gothic" seems to degrade. So grand and ambitious is this record that to listen to the whole album through is both an enjoyable but also daunting experience. Being not particularly fond of doom, I do find that the slow passages and gradual climaxes - while undeniably well executed - can become a little too much if required for casual background music. Sombre Romantic demands a lot of attention and requires the listener to wholly embrace the spirit of the record in order to gain something out of it. The riffs will not come flying at you, the guitar solos will not explode on your stereo; rather, the delicate atmospheric changes must be followed carefully. Also, while containing slight tendencies to an awareness of black metal, this is very rare and subordinate to the dominant slower doom-ish passages. As someone who loves intensity in my music, the furious roar of tremelo guitar riffs, Sombre Romantic is sometimes hard to completely enjoy. That given, Virgin Black are undeniably brilliant at what they do, and have the professionalism and sophistication one would not often expect from a relatively obscure debut. For originality and ambition alone, Sombre Romantic is a record definately worth hearing.