Talk about a long time in waiting, I mean “C’mon man!!” (In my best Joe Biden voice I can conjure up), as we over the last 12 or more months have been teased, poked, in an ultimate waiting for the new angle and spin from longtime multi-talented musician Derek Corzine with his brand new doom metal project Crowned In Sorrow.
He is the man behind such popular and diverse projects as Blood Thirsty, Whispers Of Heaven and Cosyns. This release is a mix of what this man has done in the past, but into a field that has not been touched very often and that is into the world of doom metal.
Crowned In Sorrow is a follow-up project that has seen so much anticipation through all our metal circles as Derek Corzine had a quiet spell away from music production and creation, that has put us on edge and made us all be begging for so much more input from his creative being.
The brand new debut album of this project has just been released for your listening pleasure, with an album that clocks at 64 minutes long, on this 10 track album entitled In Memoriam which seems all too acceptable for a doom metal album, as you would expect an epic journey. For fans of Paradise Lost, Paramecium and My Dying Bride.
Derek Corzine – (Drums, Bass, All Guitars and Clean/Distorted Vocals)
Guest Appearances by:
- DC Mills: Additional vocals on “Far Beyond Death”
- Luke Renno: Additional vocals on “We Carried Your Body”
- Courtney Johnson: Lead vocals on “Ashes”
- Hunter Routh: Outro guitar solo on “Slipping Away”
- Joel Goodwin: Organ on “Ashes”
- Carolina Teruel: Cello on “Ashes”
Track Listing:
- Far Beyond Death
- Ending It All
- Slipping Away
- Ashes
- Remembrance
- Blue To Gray
- Only Memories
- We Carried Your Body
- Eternity Upon Your Grave
- Remembrance (Piano Version)
“Far Beyond Death” introduces the album with a light melodic sight that gradually builds up steam as it progresses into a slumber of growling vocals and a slower formed tempo, that again is expected. Featuring DC Mills (Vials Of Wrath), you can definitely hear a Mikael Åkerfeldt influence within a well balanced musical aspect and texture of mixed clean vocals, plus devilish shrieks that are also dominated by growling vocals which have been a solid trademark of the band Opeth and their previous early work.
“Ending It All” and “Slipping Away” continue the following trend that was already laid out among us from the word go with the drawn-out doom driven death metal we can imagine. Again a nice balanced use of growls and clean vocal breaks up the common theme here as well as nice little guitar solos thrown in for good measure.
The track “Ashes” changes the album’s course with the delightful vocal capabilities of guest vocalist Courtney Johnson (Exalt The Throne). With a masterful mix of string instruments, symphonic keyboards within the elements of metal, always holds a special place to my heart. “Remembrance” follows suit with a dominant piano instrumental, however then creates such an atmosphere when ignited within the doom metal clique. A piano ONLY version of this track is found at the end of the album.
“Blue To Gray” kicks off the second part of the album in which Derek Corzine wrote on behalf of his late father who passed away a little over a year ago. A beautiful touch for this album as you can definitely feel all of the energy that has been put into the project. “Only Memories” again captures the acoustic side of his epic journey, the overall development of the song clearly references the Opeth Watershed era as I constantly get that feeling about it with the dark and brooding sounds again with his own take and creative spunk mixed with the clean and growling vocal.
“We Carried Your Body” leans more towards the death metal aspect of the duration of the album thus far, even with Luke Renno (Taking The Head Of Goliath) contributing additional vocals, whilst still maintaining the bleak rumblings projected in whichever quality of sound Derek portrays throughout the previous and different variations within In Memoriam. “Eternity Upon Your Grave” is certainly a song we all know as it was unleashed 12 months or so ago and has received some great feedback before this full-length saw the light of day. In true form this single outlays the whole mood and expectations that we came to know and on how we expected it to be presented.
My final thoughts are that In Memoriam is just an epic and impressive piece of art, that with also being a fan of Derek’s project Blood Thirsty, I knew that we would have something special on our hands. Lyrically focused on the dark times in our lives through hurt and loss has made us even feel closer to Derek and also showing his strength through Jesus Christ and the almighty God. However, though doom metal in itself isn’t one of my favourite genres, mainly caused by the length of songs, this album certainly has everything expected from him.
Christian Sullivan 9/10 – The Metal Onslaught Magazine
https://crownedinsorrow.bandcamp.com/album/in-memoriam
Out Now on ALL streaming services – iTunes, Spotify, Google Player and many more!!