A Doom Rock and Metal avalanche currently thunders into this valley of woe where the fans dwell. It is big, scary and heavy on tears and sorrow. RockmusicRaider covered a score of them bands over time: Traditional outfits like My Dying Bride or again Vanha kind of hold the fort. Then you have the youngsters like Khemmis traipsing all over the hallowed established grounds of Doom Metal.
Then again you will find these sort of crossover bands that have enough doom in them to be called that, yet sit astride a score of other styles. The German band End of Green is one of those.… Got hooked? Raid this some more...
I’ll be damned, time flies really fast. It is already ten years and five full length albums down the road for the Dutch Symphonic and Gothic Metal band Delain. Now crowned with their latest record Moonbathers. 
It is really difficult to find good, new bands – fresh blood, if you will – still active in the Gothic Metal playing ground these days. Most were already covered and they are legion. 
To ease my Death Metal injured ears somewhat, I started listening to some loftier and softer stuff. And stumbled across a band called Phantasma belting out a seemingly Nightwish-esque tune on an album called The Deviant Hearts. 
I can tell you what they are not: Van Halst are not some sort of an Evanescence clone, as was suggested by some. Their début World of Make Believe features some pretty strong similarities for sure, but they don’t imitate the typical sound of the latter, nor should they. If there has been a typical style left, that is, after the unhappy departure of the old band around Ben Moody.