Review: Sorrowstorm – Onward (13th Anniversary Edition)
Sorrowstorm’s iconic release, Onward, has always had a bit of a patchy history. Though it is apparently considered by the artist to be a standalone album, in some respects Onward was a kind of Frankenstein’s monster pieced together from multiple recordings: Caverns of Grief and Funeral Oath and Resurrection tracks were re-arranged and re-recorded, with four entirely new tracks being added to round out the massive track listing. The sound across the tracklist varied somewhat from well-produced on the new tracks to quite raw on the rest, but the core element of Swedish-style aggression remained intact throughout. To this day, Onward remains to my mind the album that Sorrowstorm is known for.
Interestingly, this unblack metal classic was revived yet again in 2021, coinciding with the resurrection of the Sorrowstorm project by Diez around that time, by Vision of God Records. Incorporating stellar new artwork by Nat Handloser of a procession of ghostly pilgrims trekking across a wolf-infested wasteland, Sorrowstorm’s Onward was given a new birth, and re-introduced to the extreme metal world.
To be honest, it gets easy to get lost in the weeds when it comes to the production history of this record, as you can see above. But the 2021 remaster of Onward retools an already re-tooled album once again, and frankly, makes it into an even greater album than it was before.
Cutting off the two interlude-like passages of “The Road to Redemption” and “Blessed Are the Martyrs,” the 2021 remaster also featured newly-recorded bass lines, as well as some of the best keyboard work I’ve heard on a black metal record in some time. Usually I find a lot of black metal bands overdo the keyboards, pushing the music into a needlessly pompous sound that takes away from the raw ferocity of black metal, but that is thankfully not the case here. While some might be a bit startled at the idea of new keyboard lines in the music, rest assured, they only augment the sound; indeed, the 2021 remaster of Onward is every bit as ferocious as the original. For the unaware, imagine a hybrid of early pre-Legion Marduk records with Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse. One would think the disparate styles of those two bands wouldn’t be a good mix, but somehow Sorrowstorm manages to pull it off with class. What’s even more interesting is Sorrowstorm’s blend of acoustic guitars into the mix as well, which are anything but your typical Ulver-like sounds (not that that’s a negative thing, by any means!).
It’s been noted on Metal Archives that Diez himself has struggled much in his life with the heavy cross of depression, amongst other things, and this definitely is reflected in the lyrics on here. Onward isn’t a straightforward account of triumph, but more a series of episodic accounts of a faith forged through fire and pain. Diez’s lyrics have an especially poetic quality to them, obviously betraying his theological education and knowledge within Reformational schools of thought. But there is a thread of acute spiritual struggle throughout this record that displays valleys of spiritual darkness and doubt that lead into mountains of light and triumph. “Chanting the Last Passages” especially demonstrates this, with its account of the struggle with despair that ends with a final haunting cry against the accuser – “Satan, I despise you.”
If you missed out on this black metal classic years ago, or have yet to discover it at all, now’s a great time to revisit one of unblack metals best releases.
Check it out HERE.
For Fans Of: Marduk (early), Skald in Veum, Emperor (early), Fire Throne, Crimson Moonlight
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