Review: Sorrow Enthroned “The Grave of Endless Writhing”

This year wasn’t too productive for the new black/death metal band Sorrow Enthroned from American Connecticut; there’s only one EP The Grave of Endless Writhing as compared to previous year’s two LPs. So again, without any financial help this one-man project has offered to us its brand new 24-minute long opus.

Once again, The Grave of Endless Writhing has very poor sound, and although it gives the general sounding a sense of old school devotion and underground vibes, it also provides even the heaviest songs with some kind of lightweight rigidity. And some interesting passages and unexpected moves sink under the messy sound, not allowing them to outshine this slightly monotonous wall of death/black metal. So, is this really so important for Sorrow Enthroned to maintain underground spirit at the expense of muting the most expressive parts?

This EP is about the hell coming to Earth, infecting the cosmos, or if we now translate it to a modern language – the human struggle against death. You can sing about these eternal topics non-stop, they never get old, while the death is still a mystery to us. The symbolic cover art in grimly minimalistic manner and with old school black/death metal traditions also indicates on undeniable allusions to the dying process and general conception of death.

Besides poor quality of sound and not too perfect mastering skills, the music itself continues the previous releases in a confident way, but also offers a couple of changes. Now, the combination of death and black metal is more coherent and bonded, so, the album sounds pretty integral, without fragmentation. He likes epic intros (“There Is No God but the God of Death” or “Ever Cursed”) with a classical music influence (“They Breed”), but those are so short, that you can’t even get used to them, when the wave of aggressive black or classic death metal hits you severely. The melodic lines cut through the low key death metal, softening the aggressive foundation of this EP; and “Gnawed and Torn” shifts almost towards melodic black/folk side. The rhythm varies from maddeningly aggressive to abnormally slow, generating a lot of associations – from anxiety and technical strictness to atmospheric pensiveness and discorded messiness. So, despite the short duration of the songs, they are filled with mood changes, various stylistic elements and structural puzzles.

On this record aggressive and melodic parts are much more in harmony than on the previous albums, but now there is also kind of stylistic diversity. So, apart from true black, mdm and brutal death metal, The Grave of Endless Writhing welcomes folk, thrash, classical and groove metal influence, but without biased impact to the overall spirit of the album.

Release date: June 9th, 2021

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