Has anyone got any Clearasil? Yes it is the sort of name you might expect from a gangrene enthused grind band but there is perhaps a clue in the word “weeping” as this trio from NYC are a doom death outfit. With two members also known for work in Pyrrhon & Seputus the defining element here is the addition of live Tchornobog artist Gina Hendrika Eygenhuysen on violin. Yes that probably draws you to making comparisons in your head to a grim bunch of Northern English miserabilists and this is something that band member Doug Moore acknowledges stating ““The whole concept of doom/death with a violin can sound pretty cheesy coming from most bands that aren’t My Dying Bride.” One thing I can assure you is that there is nothing remotely cheesy about Weeping Sores on their debut album.
Boxes are ticked aplenty, we have 6 songs and 55 minutes of music so things are definitely lengthy and stretched out as one would expect with the genre of music. The album is Recorded by Chris Grigg of WOE and mastered by Greg Chandler whose new Esoteric double album sits before me eagerly waiting to be played. As is clear after the ponderous beat of ‘Scars Whispering Secret Tongues’ is established the one-dimensional vocals courtesy of Doug are unnaturally low, gruff and sound akin to weathered tree bark. We could perhaps go to the chemist and pick up some Strepsils to go with the Clearasil! Violin takes a while to enter the picture and is a good accompaniment to the overall ballast which is dense and gnarly. There’s very little light to be found here and substance wise it is pretty much what you would expect a band like this to sound like. The problem I have found is that in its formulaic approach and although the slapdash drumming which stumbles around has some definition, this gets pretty damn stale and boring very quickly. There’s not much definition between individual tracks, its just one punishing slab of moroseness and even monotony after another. I’m not too keen on the actual sound behind it and despite the mastery behind that part of things it is bass heavy and dull. Perhaps that is what the group were going for but it just adds to the depressive nature of the overall affair and it lacks a much need sheen even the violin being beaten into submission by the clamour of the drums.
I wouldn’t like to think of myself stumbling around in the dark here, even though it might not seem like it I am a definite lover of the genre that is doom-death but here I am struggling to find good points (such as the acoustic patterns playing over ‘Song Of Embers’) but there is just a lack of atmosphere to be found here. Everything is drawn out and wears the listener down and after several listens I genuinely find myself looking forward to the album finishing rather than what I should be doing and enjoying listening to it. Of course this is not the sort of thing anyone particularly wants to read in a music review and the whole state of affairs is genuinely frustrating. It’s early days for the group and my hope is that for as much as I have disliked False Confession I hope there are others who do love it but I’m just going to leave this one here before I break out in acne. Somehow I just don’t think I’m going to ever find myself listening to this one again.
(5/10 Pete Woods)
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