Somewhere between their Death Metal roots and their Symphony Heavy Metal to follow, Therion created this gem of an album that manages to incorporate both influences into a unique brand of metal.
This band's first two albums are excellent examples of Swedish death metal with an enlightened sense of inbedded melody within crafty songwriting. Therion manage to retain this quirky melodicity and original songwriting and blend it with older styles of Heavy Metal thundering riffs and at times basic rock beats.
What makes this album special is in its ability to seamlessly transition from the death metal and heavy metal throughout the album. Never does Therion sound forced in marrying the two approaches, and the result is a melting of both styles into one unique offset of the metal genre. Adding to this originality is expert musicianship with technical abilities that only a few at the time possessed.
While later albums fell too much into the rockish Heavy Metal Symphonic cheese with much too predictable outcomes in themes, Symphony Masses represents the last spark of originality from this band before spiraling into mediocrity.