Originally from León, Guanajuato, Mexico, the duo of I. Ishtar (Guitars and Drums) and Jorge Vergara (Vocals and Bass) relocated to Gothenburg, Sweden and have just released their first full length album on Solitude Productions.
I don’t know about you, but I picture Mexico as a sunny warm place and Sorrowful’s bleak and mournful doom death seems completely out of place. “The Last Journey” opens slowly with a steady drum thump and a melancholy, lethargic guitar riff, but it’s the ultra-slow death growl that really works at bringing home the lament they feel.
While “Nothingness” also feels like it is going to ever so slowly drag you into oblivion with its slow chuggy riffing and the occasional harmonic for emphasis, when all of sudden the drums kick into high gear with the guitars following suit. The vocals however maintain their lumbering pace as juxtaposition and anchor for the song.
“Gray People” has a definite Bolt Thrower feel to it with the super-fast kick drum and cutting snare sound, but slow and heavy guitars and growled vocals.
At first beautifully bleak and haunting, the guitars on “Oceans of Darkness” fill out as the riff becomes slightly more complex and winds over itself while the vocals remain unchanged.
For some reason, probably the slightly higher tone of the guitar, “Utopian Existence” is far more allegro and chirpy than the other tracks and it lightens the mood considerably as it plays on, but when the lead kicks in it takes things to a new level of lightness you didn’t think they could achieve.
Returning to the far slower more sombre sound of earlier in the album, “Frozen Sun” has plenty of sustained notes and false harmonics punctuating the riffs, however on “The Machine of Desolation” the drums increase the pace again forcing the guitar riffs to be even heavier to subdue them and bring them back in check.
“The Flight of Mind” is easily the fastest song on the album and definitely reminds me of early Bolt Thrower with the hyper fast drumming and guitars but laconic vocals being growled out at well below half-tempo. The lengthy lead runs up the fretboard escalating in pitch as it does so.
The final track, “Eager of Death” is more mid-tempoed with plenty of flair added to the guitar riffs to make them more colourful and interesting and a pleasant way to end the album.
Today has been the perfect day to be reviewing this album with the miserable English summer rain and dark clouds adding ambience to my turns of phrase.
(7/10 Marco Gaminara)
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