Dreaming Death

Tears of World

Day without Light

Way to the Loser's Kingdom

...of my eternal Sorrow

Sacrifice - All Instruments, Nocturnal Screaming,  

Suicidal Lyrics, Suffering And Depression.

MOURNING SOUL: "An Abyss called Life - Opus 1"      mourning soul 

Composed, recorded and produced by Sacrifice

review  by dalia "gryphon_spirit" di giacomo ___             

"Death, be not proud, 

though some have called thee 
mighty and dreadful"

There are lands where a deep sense of mysticism in engraved in the inhabitants' genes. One of these lands is  Sicily for sure. Mysticism as initiation that can be developed in different ways then. One of these ways is the deep  interiorizing of the abyss, place of deep waters, place of hell or simply place of life as the title of this Demo EP openly states. "An Abyss called Life" fills me with sudden amazement, but surely i'm not surprised by the fact  that the one man band of this project, Sacrifice, comes from Sicily. I think that a music like this could be found elsewhere only in Norway or in the most underground Black metal corners in the USA, or in East Europe.. When Sacrifice says that his project is catharsis and expression "of feelings and negative emotions too big to be contained in a human body without excessive consequences" couldn't be more honest than this, considering that his music is pure raw underground Black metal intensively bound to the roots of the classic school. Rarely i 've heard something like this: absolutely raw, one of the rawest, most  imperfect, most primordial productions  you can ever think of: with a continuous blurry, noisy rustle in the  background, with  sour drums, with ominous hypnotic guttural vocals. Yet the result is the total fascination  soaked with a doomy seductive abhorrence.  This  little demo from Sicily  could open    that door to the primevous Black Metal   to al those listeners who  tried  to trespass it and failed. Burzum or Gorgoroth can represent really some of the influences, but, personally, this ep reminds me of the agonic sonorities of Greygap or even  to VON's "Headtuck". The rhythm of this particular  slower almost doomy song  of VON can give an idea of the verminous essence and sonorities (especially concerning drum technique) of Mourning Soul. 

Five are the songs of this Opus 1, that has been also re-released by Funeral Moonlight Productions (China) as split with Original Sin. Five infernos opened by the  melodic, sinister  and threatening  intro Dreaming Death whose depression arpeggios are followed by the  summoning of the legion. The intro ends   brusque and Tears of World begins with sour simplistic continuous fast blast beats and reiterate necromantic slower misanthropic vocal lines supported by doomed tremolos which , on the contrary, follow the faster rhythm impressed by the battery.  Everything  fades into  a gloomier bell call from the church of the madness. 

The third gehenna begins similar  to the second track but it's during the proceeding  of the song  that we find its diversification through a reiterate vehemence of the tremolos, like in an uninterrupted morbid flagellation. Again similar sounds the beginning of the fourth track Way to the Loser's Kingdom that surprises nonetheless with a sudden melodic breakdown that seems to disappear fading away with  the whole track. False! because the blast beats attack us again  ferocious. 

But the real pearl is the fifth track, the doomier, the most intense, with the  most tuneful guitars, the most agonizing  track with a recurrent  gloomy  and groovy  loop. In the middle of track there is an almost narcoleptic stop of the instruments in order to let us hear, like appearing among curtains of fogs, the sibylline voice of Carmelo Bene (Italian actor and director - 1937-2002) reciting a short piece from the Sonet X by John Donne.  

Morte non essere orgogliosa.

sebbene alcuni ti abbiamo chiamata

potente e terribile, tu non lo sei

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so 

......

.... NOR YET CANST THOU KILL ME

Then, Carmelo Bene's voice disappears in the agonic eruption of the last part  of the song, in the "eternal sorrow", in the "eternal Hate".

Rating: 8,4/ 10 

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