CoC : The Sorrow - Origin of the Storm : Review

The Sorrow - _Origin of the Storm _
(Drakkar, 2009)
by: Charlotte Beskeen (5 out of 10)

Since the likes of Killswitch Engage, Caliban and Shadows Fall are well and truly past their sell-by date, metalcore has become one of those subgenres where it is all too easy to get sucked into the prototype of riff-heavy structures followed by intensely melodic clean passages. Thus pioneer bands often rely too much on the discordant shift between the two to fuel their assault. _Origin of the Storm_ is an album which at times stumbles back to stolid and predictably "Rose of Sharyn"-esque breakdowns, yet at others welds together pummelling riffage, bittersweet melody and gargantuan beats quite successfully. This makes for a highly unreliable listen: one half of the album slouches lazily into metalcore boredom, the other half lurches hopefully towards originality, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. Further marred by an overemphasis on prosaic, sickly-clean choruses which take huge authority over large chunks of the album, these have the effect of trivialising the crushing power of riffage which would otherwise have great potential. Overall, this is pretty bland and formulaic, but one has to give credit for the occasional successful attempts at originality, which when they do occur, are powerful.

(article published 21/4/2009)