Album Review - One Thousand Graves, Sonsombre

Sonsombre’s eagerly awaited album One Thousand Graves was released this month, just six months after its predecessor The Veils of Ending and only a year on from debut set A Funeral For The Sun received a CD release.

With two albums of high quality guitar-driven gothic rock under his belt, and an unashamedly overtly gothic lyrical and visual aesthetic, Brandon Pybus was unlikely to break the mould for the latest release, but early reviews of the new album on its release last week suggested that One Thousand Graves was pretty much a carbon copy of The Veils of Ending.

To be fair to those reviewers, the opening trio of tracks on the new release, Fire, No Warning and When The Sun Goes Down, could all be described (in 80’s vernacular) as “mid-tempo rockers”, and therefore create the same tone as the opening tracks on the preceding album (Coming For You and Night Child), with classic gothic rock verses and bridges and more traditional epic rock choruses that would have a fan of 80’s hair metal (Europe, Scorpions et al) tapping an appreciative toe. So far, so generically Sonsombre, although seasoned listeners will detect a fuller production sound from engineer Jason Ledyard, stronger and less pitchy vocals from Pybus and a slightly harder edge to his guitar sound.

Those who prefer the more melancholic, darker “cemetery” feel of deathrock tracks like Mirror, Mirror, and Unfit For Endings or the alt-dancefloor stomp of Fear and The Future is Black from the previous album need not worry, as from track four One Thousand Graves takes a distinct turn in the direction of the misty crow-haunted graveyard that graces the album’s cover. Like Rats begins with a spooky - and spookily familiar to Sonsombre fans – minor key piano riff, rudely interrupted by shredded guitar shards and a slow-burning deathrock vibe, with Pybus delivering his most melodious vocal yet over an understated verse backing before the downtuned guitars return for the chorus, as Pybus exorcises and indeed exercises his own doom metal past to scintillating effect.

Although retaining some of the minor key misery, following track Darker Skies also succumbs to a rather musically and lyrically cliched stadium anthem chorus (think: The Cascades) after a wonderfully lugubrious goth verse, complete with Lucretia-style bass and growlingly Nephilimistic vocal, with the lyrical theme becoming ever gloomier. The central track on the eleven song album, Lights Out, was released as a video single teaser for One Thousand Graves, and in many ways it now seems the natural choice, allying the dancefloor sensibility of the best moments of The Veils of Ending with the slightly more angular guitar sound and harder edge of the new album.

After half a dozen turkey-trotting fist-in-the-air in-your-face goth guitar anthems the listener is in need of a musical pause, which is perfectly provided by arguably the most interesting track on the album, the slow-paced Slumber, which starts with a musical box and organ opening and on which the power chords uniquely never feature. Pybus gives another impassioned vocal, showcasing the improvement in his vocals from the debut CD, on a track which is reminiscent of Rammstein’s more pastoral moments. This is hopefully a direction will be explored furtheron future albums, but the same organ and music box combination also feature immediately on the intro to the next track and arguably the album’s highlight, Highgate, which similar Like Rats features a claustrophobic jagged guitar riff in the chorus with a more dramatic, slightly histrionic and largely guitar-free verse. Heavier, more discordant and darker than any of the tracks on The Veils of Ending, Highgate is the sound of an artist pushing his creative limits, providing an exhilaratingly dark and dramatically gothic listening experience.

The title track, One Thousand Graves, continues the harder, darker edge, with a chorus guitar riff with shades of blackgaze pioneer Penance Stare, but with its galloping bass and dancefloor friendly verse, it recreates the atmosphere of Fear from the previous album and would make an excellent single at some stage, as it also boasts the most overtly gothic lyric on the album, “When I close my eyes, I hear the dead”. None more goth!

The stunning run of tracks continues, with the final pair of songs rounding off the album perfectly. This Procession slows things down briefly with a piano and semi-choral intro, before branching into a full-on driving goth rock classic, with again (encouragingly) a more intrusive guitar riff on the verse, and a chorus that combines melody and intensity in a way that the album’s opening tracks never quite managed. Album closer Remember Me begins with Pybus intoning the opening lines (seemingly observing his own funeral) in his deepest, gothest baritone, over a piano motif and the semi-choral synth drone that could have been directly lifted from the start of Between on the previous album. Indeed, throughout the song the listener is reminded in turn of moments of many tracks from the previous two albums, making this the perfect ending to Sonsombre’s opening trilogy.

In the space of just eighteen months and three impressive albums, Brandon Pybus has established himself as the leading light of the gothic strand of the Goth/Post-Punk/Darkwave revival, creating a new musical aesthetic for the genre’s fifth decade. A skilled songwriter with a strong appreciation of dynamics and melody and a clear and respectful understanding of the genre’s history, he is also an outstanding performer as a vocalist, guitarist and producer. Whilst One Thousand Graves is only a subtle evolution from The Veils of Ending, and notwithstanding a somewhat predictable opening salvo of tracks, the new album is Sonsombre’s most complete to date, and hints at multiple even darker directions for the future. To paraphrase his own catchphrase, Pybus will clearly be staying goth for some time to come.

One Thousand Graves is available to buy on Bandcamp and the usual deluxe eight-panel CD version is available in Schengen zone Europe via Post Gothic and the band is now signed to  Cleopatra Records for the US.