By: Richard Maw
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 29/05/2020
Label: Metal Blade Records
“Lamenting
of the Innocent” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Persecution (intro)
2. The Hammer of Witches
3. Lamenting of the Innocent
4. Institoris
5. Where Spirits Die
6. Deliverance
7. Age of the Damned
8. Condemned
9. Dance with the Devil
10. Path To Perdition
11. Hellfire (Bonus Track – only available on Digipak CD)
2. The Hammer of Witches
3. Lamenting of the Innocent
4. Institoris
5. Where Spirits Die
6. Deliverance
7. Age of the Damned
8. Condemned
9. Dance with the Devil
10. Path To Perdition
11. Hellfire (Bonus Track – only available on Digipak CD)
The Review:
Nordic
doomsters Sorcerer
return with their third full length album. As eagle eyed readers of the blog
will know, I'm a fan of the first two records, which I reviewed glowingly. Can
the band strike gold (figuratively and not in terms of sales, sadly) again?
First
impressions are good- a minute long intro reveals an excellent sound and mix.
First track proper, “The Hammer of
Witches”, is the business- triplet pacing and a real headbanger of a track.
Trad doom like this is always best when it doesn't actually stray that far from
trad metal and “Lamenting of the
Innocent” does not disappoint in that regard.
From
the epically lengthy title track to the acoustic “Deliverance”, the album is like a lengthy trad metal album in terms
of structure and content; some tracks rock hard, some up the slow and low
content. It's dark and epic in equal measure. At ten tracks it is arguably a
little long (and yes, there is an intro and an acoustic track in that number)
as many of the songs push past the seven and eight minute mark- certainly,
listening to this in full requires a serious time investment. That said, what
would you rather have? More music or less music?!
Even
on tracks such as “Age of the Damned”-
which I would count as a little weaker than some others- there are good
melodies and catchy vocal lines which lift it far above plodding status. The
fact of the matter is that there is nothing bad on here and the majority of the
material is good/great. The histrionics of “Dance With The Devil” would fit right onto any Tony Martin-era Sabbath
album (a big compliment) and the band really finish in true grandstanding style
with “Path To Perdition”; a really
epic doom track.
Such
is the length and scope of the album it's hard to assess it against their
previous two records- the true detail of the album can only be revealed with repeated
listening, I think. This is of course recommended for all fans of trad doom and
particularly those who like the epic feel of the genre. It's massive and
crushing.
“Lamenting
of the Innocent”
is available HERE
