“We regret that this had to be a mini-LP, but Andy was involved in an unfortunate accident and was unable to go into the studio with us to record additional tracks. Fortunately, he is making a full recovery and will be able to record a full length album for 1992. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the friends and family of Lisa Thompson who was not as fortunate and Andy. We should all recognize the frailty of life and fight to preserve it, not destroy it”
Thats the first thing you see when opening the jewel case of this forgotten doom influenced death metal release. Not a common thing to see on a release such as this from back in the day. It was also not a common occurence for the guitarist to have half his ass hanging out on the band photo on the back cover…but such is the case. This Long Island band started out as a five piece thrash band in 1988 called APPARITION and around the turn of the century became SORROW…
This was on Roadrunner (or R/C, as they were known as back then)…you know, when the labels slogan, or tag line, whatever, was “some music was meant to stay underground”. The label is now home to Nickelback. So much for that. I still have this bitch housed in the original “long box”. Remember those? If not, nevermind, but its a cool nostalgia trip for me.
On to the music…track one, a slow, dirge-like trip to the bowels of stench ridden reverb/bass heavy death/doom metal entitled ‘awaiting the savior’ is filled with awesome, catchy riffs and tasteful soloing. Staccato, thrash-like riffs compete with melodic noted based assaults and extended doom riffing. The lyrics in this song contains the lovely passage…”I remember the blade that ripped through her flesh/as she tried to escape/but she knew as I smiled/that I controlled her fate”.
Song #2 (’Eternally Forgotten’) starts with a lightning fast riff and machine gun drums with catchy vocal lines. After a couple verses, its slows down to a slow pace much like track 1 with some more great solos/riffs. About halfway through, the jackhammer drums/riffs return. The last minute of this song contains as awesome passage of an exploding solo that crashes into a staccato dirge only to erupt into a quick thrash-like exit.
“Curse the Sunrise”, track #3 starts slow, with, yet again, great guitar work all around. It quickly launches into a fast passage only to collapse back into the slow pace about a minute later. Note-based riffing followed by yet another killer, emotional solo(s) follows. The last 20 seconds of the song contains a fast-picked muted riff over the lyrics “he takes a look into his past/and hopes this breath will be his last”.
The last song on this four song disc is entitled “A Wasted Cry For Hope”. Over 8 minutes of more depression filled metal motherfucker. The songs subject is basically the same as Al Gore’s movie about global warming…we are fucking killing ourselves! The song does contain the hopeful line “together we can rise above the filth/to live in peace and harmony”…but ends with “but nothing will change” followed by a screaming solo that fades to black. Twenty-two minutes and fifteen seconds in total on this disc, and not a wasted second in my opinion…fucking great, classic death/doom here.
I haven’t mentioned the vocal screams of the afformentioned Andy. They are killer….an effortless LOW growl with a nice tone that compliment the music perfectly throughout.
Read all of Shane’s Music Reviews in our Music section.
