Everyone likes a good side project right? Even more so when it’s off the member/band’s beaten path and a little different from the full time project. Case in point, Wrong, a project started by Wormed‘s vocalist/drummer Phlegeton, who performs the same duties here. He is joined by David Perez (The YTriple Corporation) on guitars and bass and the project is as far from Wormed as you can imagine, being depressive, doomy, atmospheric black metal befitting Moribund Records.
5 songs, 36 minutes of brittle, mid paced black metal with the occasional frosty, tremolo blast. It has ties to Shining, Taake and of course the host of one man depressive black metal bands like Xasthur etc. It’s well done, fittingly somber and wrought with despair, but with just enough variety and pacing so it’s not a singular, melancholic mope. the guitar tone is tinny, but appropriate and the atmospherics are just the right level of morose, more often than not a haunting piano delivering just the right amount of saddened backdrop or some somber clean croons.
Opener “They Look at Me” pretty well defines the rest of the album; steady canter, moody wails, a couple of blast beats and all of it sheathed in a depressive, self loathing aura. Second track “Through the Slit” then delivers a more atonal, take on doom laden black metal with a steady, dissonant march, that really reminded me of Shining and ends with a nice traditional black metal burst. “I Prefer So” has the album’s most traditional doom melody with a very nice rending melody and peaks with a pretty neat tremolo picked blast beat. Perez’s background in melodic death metal is certainly more tangible than Phlegeton’s more brutal/grindcore history, as the guitar lines, while somber, have a subtle melodic undercurrent as heard on “Now I Remember” and closer “I Want to Hear You Scream”.
It’s this dichotomy that keeps Memories of Sorrow interesting. Though it has this depressive sheen in its overall musical and vocal presence, it never lulls or simply strums dully away in pure suicidal black metal realms or beats you over the head with melancholy – it’s just there, lurking, pulsing around other forms of black metal, delivering with conviction and skill.
