Published: January 13, 2021

If the new ways of Metal nowadays sometimes astonish me, a guy that follows all the plots that happen in it, I wonder my dear common fan of Metal that has been away for a while and listen to all this we have here in Sertraline “The Streetlight Was All We Needed,” a retrospective album of the three EPs the band has released throughout the years. It’s no secret here that this happened to me when I started to review album for this wondrous page. I got astonished with what I heard and knew. The melts and mixes bands are making are simply astonishing to the ears of someone who’s used to classic Metal. When it comes to this album I guess the surprese is bigger due to the contrast of the gutural and anguished voice with the calm and cool instrumental which, by the way, in my opinion reinforces the doom atmosphere.

The uncanny starts with the dualistic – to say the least – name of the album “The Streetlight Was All We Needed.” As we all know the light is something all shadow followers avoid. The streetlight even more. On the other hand, if we think it straight, the ones who want redemption look for the light. So, I guess Sertraline are a band that look for redemption with the release of this compilation – retrospective – of three EPs. And how the music in here? I confess that it beats me because I feel divided with it. The contrast inside it is the thing that attracts me the most. This kind of vocals is always something very powerfull and it gets even more powerfull when compared with the intimistic ands moody instrumentals. Let’s take the last track “Prague,” for instance. Instrumental seem to be out of the theme of the song, I mean, they are kind of not related at all with the song. They are so intimistic that this feeling stands until the end of the song. In fact, this is the most amazing of it. It is a completely uncommon way of making music. Especially Metal music that have all its rules and standards. Sertraline proved to be out of them. Suddenly in the forth minute or so the song speeds it up and gets eve more out. What sounded out now gets in, if you ask me. The atmospheric mood is the tone of the album  from the beginning with “(BLOOM)” the track that presents the band to the fan. “Azalea” follows it and in a way gets its main idea from the flower it is named after. It’s gentle and strong at the same time with a beauty that goes beyond.

“The Streetlight Was All We Needed” an album that surprises.