ALBUM REVIEW: Beyond The Shores (On Death and Dying) – Shores of Null

Italy’s SHORES OF NULL are perhaps one of the more impressive death/doom acts out there. Incorporating subtle flourishes of black metal and more overt gothic soundscapes, the band have a powerful and epic sound that perfectly balances its heavier and cleaner aspects incredibly well, with their firs two albums, Quiescence and Black Drapes for Tomorrow, establishing a catchy and brooding sound for the band, with the latter album in particular gaining the band some well deserved critical acclaim.

Their latest album, Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying), pushes the band’s sound even further, with this magnificent album, consisting of a single song and featuring plenty of great guest appearances, making for an ambitious and musically diverse record that should cement this band as one of premier acts within the genre.

This album opens with a hauntingly sombre violin line, setting a melancholic and grandiose tone right out of the gate, with the music taking on a slow, but bombastic feel with slow, meaty guitars, steady, hypnotic drumming and slick, brooding leads establishing the dark, gothic atmosphere that underpins the whole track extremely well. The traditional metal components of guitar, bass and drums provide a great backdrop for the rest of the album’s sound, with only a few melodic flourishes creeping in on occasion, which really allows the other parts that feature to add plenty of flavour to the proceedings. The vocals especially are magnificent, ranging from sorrowful, emotive clean passages to dense gutturals, adding plenty of character to the song, making everything all the more immersive.

As the tempo quickens, the song enters its second, more urgent phase, with animated rhythms and equally energised leads only adding to the monstrous vocals, leaning more heavily towards a classic death/doom sound, with this in turn shifting seamlessly into a cavernous motif that makes great use of the interplay between the male and female vocal sections, as well as the sonorous, chanted sections, some slightly harsher guitar tones and crisp, sublime accompaniment from the piano, taking the music down an eclectic route musically, whilst still maintaining much of the brooding gothic pomp that has served this album well so far.

From this point on, the music, whilst still remaining a great, mid-paced offering, begins to swing from exceptionally intense and visceral moments to much lighter, grandiose ones, creating a great sound that ebbs and flows as the song reaches its climax, keeping the listener guessing almost from minute to minute it seems, with a few hints of black metal briefly entering the guitar hooks right before the end, with those fantastic, hair-raising violins returning to the forefront of the sound, bringing the albums sound full circle as the song dies away on a jarring, cacophonous note.

One of the dangers that comes with making a single track the entire focal point of an album, and one that SHORES OF NULL have luckily managed to avoid, is making sure that such a lengthy and expansive piece of music sound great all the way through, with little, if any, filler dampening the overall quality of the music on offer. This album is incredibly dramatic and engrossing from start to finish, with the guest appearances, in particular the female vocals and excellent violins, helping to elevate and oftentimes complement the music on this record quite significantly, turning what was already a great album into one of the musical highlights of the 2020. In a year that has already seen a variety of great releases by bands with a more gothic sound and style, this is perhaps one of the more impressive and enduring ones, and easily stands as the best thing SHORES OF NULL have accomplished to date.

Rating: 10/10

Beyond The Shores (On Death And Dying) is out now via Spikerot Records.

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