The Sorrow is a fairly average metalcore band from Austria. ‘Blessing From a Blackened Sky’ is the bands début album and to be quite honest there’s not much of interest on display here whatsoever. The sound is pulled off fairly competently, there’s just no life in it all. The Sorrow jumps here from track to track without ever showing any signs of enthusiasm, there is no passion in the music and it’s therefore an extremely uninspiring album of metalcore mediocrity.
There is no denying that the members of The Sorrow are fairly talented musicians, there is a decent amount of musical ability on display here but the music just contains no personality. The Sorrow fail to make the music their own, there’s just no way whatsoever of telling The Sorrow apart from any other metalcore band; individuality is lacking in the music and this album is therefore not very exciting at all to listen to.
The band here progresses on this ‘Blessing From a Blackened Sky’ album through some interesting chord changes, a decent vocal display, and some finely executed drum beats. The problem is not in the music itself but in the way that it all comes across. Although the music is good, still you do not feel compelled to listen; the severe lack of individuality and personality in the music means that the music comes across as half hearted and no matter how good this album may be musically, the passion is always sadly lacking.
The vocals are often here shouted, there is the odd melodic moment however and ultimately the music just comes across as all too predictable. The music lacks imagination and listening to this album can therefore at times be difficult. ‘Blessing From a Blackened Sky’ is not a bad album in terms of musical ability here shown, it is however a bad album in the way of energy, enthusiasm, and ultimately excitement. Metalcore pulled off well can sound excellent, a sublime mix of metal and hardcore; this is not however what this is, this début album from The Sorrow is an unexciting affair of predictable and uninspired mildly entertaining noise. The music lacks substance but it’s not done badly, it’s not done particularly well either but still I would not label this a bad album.
Track titles such as ‘The Dagger Thrust’, ‘Darkest Red’, and ‘Death From a Lovers Hand’ suggest of the predictability of this band, it’s all a tad too generic and contrived. It’s as though the band has read some sort of ‘Metalcore Handbook’ and thrust as many clichés into the music as possible with the view that the more the music contains, the better. On this ‘Blessing From a Blackened Sky’ album The Sorrow sounds like a band trying desperately to replicate the sound of others rather than focussing on creating an original sound of the bands own. The sound produced here soon becomes tired, far before the twelve tracks of this album are over then any interest will be long since lost.
Were The Sorrow to inject a bit of passion into the sound then there is no doubt in my mind that this would be a decent album. The music is predictable but the member of The Sorrow definitely possess great talent. The band members here do not make the best use of their talent and from the enthusiasm displayed here are not particularly enjoying the music that they are producing; The Sorrow is not a bad band however and ‘Blessing From a Blackened Sky’ is not an entirely terrible début album. Huge improvements need to be made to the sound, with a few tweaks and changes however I can seriously see The Sorrow becoming an excellent band. The talent is there, all that’s needed now is passion and The Sorrow will be the finished article. Perhaps a change of vocalist is in order for this band, that could well be the detrimental factor behind the current shortcomings of The Sorrow. I’ll be interested to see what this band has to offer in the future, my opinion is that things can only get better.
Label: Drakkar Records
Release Date: 6th August 2007
Rating:
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
