Kingdom of Sorrow, the Sludge/Hardcore superstar band created by Kirk Windstein (Crowbar) and Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed), returns once more for their second full-length studio effort, Behind the Blackest Tears. Fans of the band's debut album will find very little in the way of surprises on this release, as the band continues to play their signature sound that just feels more solid then before. However, there's something just a little misleading with this release that could have some individuals worrying for future albums.
Behind the Blackest Tears is a phenomenal album and manages to blend the best of both the Hardcore world, and the Sludge world, together to a hard hitting effort. The music on here seems to be a little tighter and more matured compared to their debut album, taking on a much more Crowbar inspired role musically then before. However, there's no denying that the album really starts off rough, as the opening track, "Enlightened to Extiction", sounds exactly like a song by mallcore act Slipknot. Sadly, this is not the only case for this album either. While this song, as well as the other more Mallcore sounding tracks, which include "Envision the Divide" and even "Along the Path to Ruin" in some aspects, among others, all sound heavy and still come off strong, it's just such an incredible departure from the better and unique Sludge sound that makes up the better tracks on the album.
The rest of this release is pretty strong and, again, really focused on the Sludge aspect and sound far from the Mallcore tracks that litter the release. There's plenty of great songs on here, such as "God's Law in the Devil's Land", which really introduces the listener to the heart of the music here, which is a slower paced track that has some great guitar work and varying vocals. "The Death We Owe" is another one of the slower paced tracks on here, but the music moves at more of a chugging sluggish pace then anything, and while the guitars during the chorus are well done, the rest of it just gets overly repetative and Jamey's vocals inevitably wind up becoming more of an annoyance then anything, and not just on this song. After a while, the monotone back-of-the-throat sounding shouting vocals provided for this release can play on one's nerves, but luckily it's not on all the tracks. The title track "Behind the Blackest Tears" works well with the varying vocal styles presented here, as well as "With Barely a Breath". "Salvation Denied", however, is perhaps the oddest track off the entire album, but it won't shock you one bit. Considering the album started off with a Mallcore track. why the hell not close the album with a Hardcore song?. The song itself is the most intense song on here, but far from any sort of Kingdom of Sorrow song since it's just a straight forward Hardcore track you would expect Hatebreed to perform.
All in all, Behind the Blackest Tears by Kingdom of Sorrow winds up being a sort of grab bag for music. There's some really good songs on here that show the band has the right direction when it comes to mixing the Hardcore sound with Sludge, but there's just some issues you can't overlook. Sometimes the vocals are annoying, or a song will seem to go on for too long, or even just sound completely out of place as if Kingdom of Sorrow is a completely different band. This is a release you'd want to tread softly on, sample it a bit before you buy it as there's still some surprises on this album as you can tell, but there's undeniably some very hard hitting tracks that best define what Kingdom of Sorrow is and could be on future releases.
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