SORCERER: Reign Of The Reaper (DOOM): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

The last time Sorcerer came to present their epic doom, it was on the occasion of "Reverence" (2021), recorded in the midst of a pandemic. Although nice, it was only an EP with covers. Not enough to satisfy the impatience of fans whose thirst for dolorous heavy had been quenched by the very good "Lamenting Of The Innocent" (2020). Its (real) successor was thus eagerly awaited.

Announced by a most promising first single ('Morning Star'), whose sombre grandiloquence is reminiscent of a doom version of Therion, "Reign Of The Reaper" finally arrives. Its reasonable length - less than fifty minutes - is reassuring after a third album whose pantagruelic format somewhat diminished its intensity. It's even the shortest album from the Swedes, which doesn't mean they've run out of inspiration. On the contrary, they have avoided filler retaining just nine tracks, each as unstoppable as the next, squeezed into a menu that suffers neither from length nor sluggishness.

The music, inspired by the lyrical heavy doom whose foundations were laid by Candlemass' "Chapter VI", is as seductive as ever, combining baroque power and dark atmospheres with that typically Swedish propensity for racy melodies. The ghost of Yngwie Malmsteen is sometimes not far away. The flamboyantly brilliant guitar playing of Kristian Niemann and Peter Hallgren is no stranger to this filiation, while singer Anders Engberg would have a place on an album by the author of "Rising Force".

Compared to its predecessors, "Reign Of The Reaper" is nevertheless darker in color, as illustrated by the superb, hauntingly dark title track and "The Underworld", which crawls into the depths of ominous bowels. In its heaviest moments, the album evokes the Black Sabbath of the Tony Martin period, or even the original Rainbow, an eternal reference for the Scandinavians, as witness 'Thy Kingdom Will Come', numbed by an epic heaviness. But always, the vocals, high and bursting with emotion, caress the Golgotha of the dramatic 'Eternal Sleep' or 'Break Of Down', a nocturnal power-ballad that closes the ban on a delicate note.

A heavy doom marvel of hazy elegance, "Reign Of The Reaper" is undoubtedly the most accomplished album since Sorcerer's resurrection in 2010. - Official website

SORCERER

REIGN OF THE REAPER

METAL BLADE RECORDS

DOOM