(written by Islander)
“Blackened Death Metal for fans of Dissection, Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir, Sacramentum and Vinterland“. That’s how Horror Pain Gore Death Productions hails the music on the third EP from New Jersey’s Dragsholm, which the label will release tomorrow (September 6th).
That turns out to be a meaningful set of reference points for the four songs on Sorrow Hexen. And that title of the EP is a good reference point in itself, conjuring thoughts of both melancholia and the occult, both of which are features of the music’s atmosphere — though there are other features as well.
You’ll have an opportunity to experience everything Dragsholm bring to the table on Sorrow Hexen, here on the eve of its release, because we’ve got a full stream for you below.
Dragsholm are a fairly new band, founded in 2017 and not achieving a full lineup until 2022, but they have a clear conception of their sound and a precocious talent for turning it into reality.
In their Sorrow Hexen songcraft Dragsholm don’t wander. In the EP’s first three songs, only one of them reaches the three-minute mark, though the four-and-a-half-minute title track at the end demonstrates what they’re capable of doing when they spread their wings a bit more.
The EP’s opener, “Death Knell“, doesn’t even hit the two-minute mark, and it doesn’t race to get there. It’s instead a chilling mood-setter, allowing the eerie drift of synths, a distant muffled thump, and other strange intrusions to create ghostly visions of a place where the dead roam.
In the follow-on track, “Irina’s Heart“, aspects of the supernatural are still present, but this time Dragshom also vividly demonstrate the potency and sweep of their moody melodies. With the rhythm section hurtling and hammering, the music traces a dramatic and engulfing river of anguish and despair.
The vocals are jarring — howling and screaming from throats that sound choked with bone fragments and ichor, adding their own form of madness to the tides of heartbreak and torment in the melody. Following a bass solo, the emotional timbre of the music descends into even darker realms, portraying a kind of grim despondency for which hope is a thing of the past.
With “Verglas“, the band deliver another short track, and it’s interesting that they made it so compact, because it’s the kind of music that most bands capable of making would have extended for many more minutes. It’s a racing charge, exhilarating and glorious but also hammering and slashing, the kind of thing that might make you thing of armored knights hurtling into battle with banners whipping in the wind.
The torrid vocals are a barbaric accompaniment to the song’s warlike manifestations, and the track’s episodes of feral slashing are real head-movers too, while the trilling and shimmering tones in the upper reaches seem geared to putting listeners’ hearts in their throats.
As mentioned, it would have been interesting to hear how Dragsholm might have extended this song and taken it into different moods and sensations had they allowed it more time. But we do get a chance to discover what they might have done, courtesy of that 4 1/2 minute title track at the end.
The title song “Sorrow Hexen“ does prove to be a multi-faceted affair, packed with a lot of powerful hooks. On the one hand, it includes gloriously gleaming synths and a chiming arpeggio that seems to fervently yearn toward the heavens over a big throbbing bass. On the other hand, it also includes further does of those ferocious, fang-bared snarls, as well as punishing blasts and the glitter of feverish guitar-convulsions.
Those chiming notes also begin to sound more despairing and distressing, more hopeless in their yearning, and the overarching mood of the song becomes more grim and threatening as rough vibrating chords gouge and drill. But at the end, the band reprise the song’s opening section, and that lodges its big pleading hook even deeper in the mind.
As mentioned, Sorrow Hexen will be released by HPGD Productions on September 6th — tomorrow. It’s available for order now, on CD and digital formats, and you can also pre-save it on Spitify.
PRE-ORDER (CD and shirts):
https://shop.horrorpaingoredeath.com/collections/dragsholm
PRE-ORDER (Digital):
https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/sorrow-hexen
PRE-SAVE (Spotify):
https://ffm.to/dragsholm
DRAGSHOLM:
https://www.facebook.com/Dragsholmband/
https://dragsholm.bandcamp.com/