Review Summary: The Sound of Death
Metal is littered with apocalyptic stories and disdain for the human race. Tales of corruption, democracy failing, the dangers of AI and the poisoning of the earth are all well trodden by multitudes of acts and for good reason, death and misery is all around and impossible to ignore. The Sonus Mortis project is especially fixated on these themes and has a short but stacked back catalogue filled with a style of symphonic blackened death metal that perfectly suits.
My first encounter with Sonus Mortis was “Hold This Mortal Coil” in 2020 which gave me bearings on their sound but could not prepare me for the wipeout I experienced with 2023’s “Of Red Barren Earth”. A thoroughly dark epic doomscape unfolded that was almost completely missed by the metal community. That’s no disrespect as I missed the album previous “Collapse the Mountain” the first of this trilogy.
The final installment “Synapse the Hivemind” is upon us and completes the “dystopian journey of humanity’s downfall, rooted in themes of technological dominance, environmental collapse, and societal degradation” as described within their inner sanctum walls. It opens very elaborately with “Biomechanical Horrors” and very quickly the mood of impending doom sets in but it is strangely alluring, as mastermind Dubliner Kevin Byrne is proven to be able to conjure. Rolling riffs and hammering drums coalesce with grand synths to depict a deathly landscape, “Constrain the sovereign will, decimate democracy, rewrite history”. Few of us are fooled that this is purely fictional.
Structurally the second track “Eyes in the Sky” is an eyebrow raiser, a 2 minute blast of symphonic black unlike their more fleshed out compositions, but Sonus Mortis are unconventional and it adds to the chaotic feel being portrayed. Plenty of acts would blast beat their way to oblivion in telling this story but Byrne has a much more interesting and ultimately more powerful style, putting atmosphere front and centre in songs like “I Used to be Human”, combining layers of melodic guitars with conversational death vocals, occasionally raising the tempo for dramatic effect and accentuating with undulating solos and tempering with closing piano.
But it’s at “The System Shock” that the record really whips up the paranoia, and begins to remind me of another periodically tortured mind, that of Devin Townsend. A strange correlation perhaps but there’s some guitar parallels to be found as well especially in the final minute of the song to cast my mind back to Strapping Young Lad’s “Alien” or the eccentricity of “Deconstruction”. The apocalypse continues with “The Perfect Host”, a chapter on the elevation of an autocrat that strikingly features a bass solo to drill in the chaos at hand. Byrne shares a profound progressive perspective on symphonic death doom as Craig Rossi’s Drift Into Black, an artist with his own suite of melodic metal to rival this Sonus Mortis trilogy.
The centrepiece of the record certainly feels arrived at with the sample telling us to “Escape before it’s too late - for two or three years now I’ve had this very unpleasant feeling that we should get out - Get out of here” in “The Unravelling Array”. It’s quite frightening actually, and fans of horror in metal would appreciate this danger and darkness. The title track touches on an affected citizen’s struggle against such an overwhelming machine and how there’s probably no escape - “the joke’s on you” a cruel taunt. None of this would work on its own but Byrne’s incredible guitar playing and songwriting hold such weight, it’s an unlikely beast to behold. All pieces fit, including the Wars references to the “Deracinated” and the closing uprising of “Slaves to the Algorithm (Execute the Code)” imploring us to fight back, to the established backdrop of sci-fi inspired horror metal. Sci-fi now - but not for long I’m afraid.
