The Soil Bleeds Black continues to slowly change their style from electronic neo-medieval through more traditional music and now to a more folky approach. The band discovered the accoustic guitar which results in some neo-folk-like songs. This I do not only say because of the use of a guitar, but also the song-structure and manner of singing is comperable to neo-folk at times. The violin is mostly flutes on “Quintessence”, but there is also some violin to be heard. Another thing that changed is the mood of the music. Whereas in past days the music was cheerful and funny, this new cd is pretty melancholic. The third change is the length of the songs. TSBB used to be able to fit 36 tracks in 45 minutes, but this time there are 5 songs for 40 minutes. And -last but not least-, the band finally made recordings with a good sound-quality.
Overall I must say that inspite of the change of style, I really like this cd and I think it is safe to say that people who like the older albums may still like “Quintessence”, but people who found the older albums too happy may want to listen to this one. Maybe “Quintessence” will even appear to the neo-folk audience.