Two bands from the artist roster of the wonderful Italian label Everlasting Spew have joined forces for a split release. Featuring Rome’s melodically charged gothic doomers Shores of Null and Convocation; a Finnish Death Doom outfit hailing from Helsinki. The split which is entitled ‘Latitudes of Sorrow’ features five tracks. Each band contributes two exclusive songs to the tracklist with the other song being a collaborative effort.
The opening two songs are handled by Shores of Null. Track one ‘An Easy Way’ summons up a dreary, moody exhibition of relatively conventional Doom Metal fare. With the simplistic alarm of steady lead guitar picking and the growled/clean vocal dichotomy, the song feels similar in a few ways to early Katatonia releases and even more so akin to Paradise Lost. ‘The White Wound’ resumes the listening experience in a similar way to the previous track with some pretty basic guitar progressions. The track is very stereotypical for the style and with its somewhat limited ideas, the song becomes quite stale and uninspiring within its first couple of minutes. Beyond this, a rather unremarkable crescendo takes place over the latter portion of the track.
Luckily, things seem to improve on the third song, which is the collaborative ‘The Year Without Summer’. This levelling up of intrigue seems to come by way of some more engaging dynamic switch-ups, and the song seems to have a more obvious sense of direction compared to the tracks that came before it. The second half of the song is where Convocation finally arrives. The two bands fuse the moodier and Gothic/Doom elements with the deathly chugging into a more vibrant composition. ‘Abaddon’s Shadow’ is the first of the two exclusive songs by Convocation. The atmosphere of the record takes an immediate turn towards something more viscerally pained and heavier. The triplet guitar rhythms and punchy bass drums create something that lies more towards the end of Funeral Doom. The song features a fairly expressive screamed vocal performance and I enjoy the additional percussive switch-ups. Whilst I don’t think that the song eclipses anything more than fairly good Death/Doom, the track is definitely a more interesting listen than anything else up to this point on the split.
The split closes with ‘Empty Room’ which opens to a Sabbath-esque psych riff before the familiar Death Doom style returns. The song features some additional quiet clean vocals and a melodic lead inclination that hints towards something vaguely funereal. The track feels slightly progressive and I sense that Convocation are trying to close the record out on something of a high note. I have to say that whilst I can appreciate the chemistry displayed on the collaborative track here, the album feels like a very by-the-numbers batch of Death/Doom tracks and I find little in the way of excitement or engaging ideas throughout the record’s entire runtime. The Convocation tracks, whilst doing little to inspire me to seek out more material from them, have clearly delivered the better contribution of the two bands. As for Shores Of Null, when considering the lofty standards of the style of music that they play, the tracks all too frequently feel like underworked and incomplete blueprints. Their two full tracks on this release feel sleepy and forgettable.
