Archives of the Dead part XVII: ACRIMONY – A Sombre Thought (Demo 1992)

Archives of the Dead part XVII: ACRIMONY – A Sombre Thought (Demo 1992)

Line up: Darren Ivey (drums), Stuart O'Hara (guitars), Lee Davies (guitars), Dorian Walters (vocals), David Jones (bass)

Recorded at Sonic Studios, Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, West Wales, April 18-19, 1992

Ha, it’s quite confusing, as here’s a 1992 release from band called Acrimony… and this Acrimony is from Wales and they’re new band for me, I never heard of them until recently. Meanwhile I used to know Polish Acrimony, who did an album titled “In Unknown Direction”, also released in 1992 and which used exactly the same front artwork as the Welsh Acrimony. Haha, so fuckin confusing and coincidence! I wonder how did it all happen and who was the first to use the name and this painting? Anyways, I remember I bought the cassette of Polish Acrimony twenty years ago and I did not like their thrash metal at all, so let me say that this UK Acrimony was just ways better. “A Sombre Thought” was their debut demo from 1992 and it’s really damn cool doomy death metal. Those guys pretty much followed the well known recipes for doom / death metal, which would originate from the Scandinavian scene (Finnish and Swedish), but surely had also some similarities to some British bands and finally also some traces of Obituary, but in more melodic / less brutal way. Anyway, there are three really damn good tracks here. At first I thought that the vocals are lame and not brutal enough… And maybe there are some weak vocals in the first song, but the main vocal sound is great, dark and sinister, almost on the verge of death metal growl and black metal shriek. Somehow these vocals remind me a bit of early Johan Edlund mixed with John Tardy haha! I like the music a lot, as it’s quite aggressive and rough, despite the fact that it still holds that sorrowful and melancholic feeling of doom metal. But Acrimony was not a band, which would make utterly slow and sad music, it wasn’t My Dying Bride like doom death, but rather something dark and vicious. It’s nice aggressive stuff, long songs, but with good tension and arrangements… And also the production was damn good, better than you would expect from a demo recording. So, generally I must say that Acrimony surprised me a lot and I really liked this demo. Sadly, later they changed their style completely and turned into a stoner kind of band, supposedly similar to such Kyuss or whatever… not my style of music at all. They even managed to record two albums for Peaceville. Who cares… I like this demo only. Really nice discovery, 23 years after the recording of this cassette.

Standout track: “Mourn the Dead”

Final rate: 80/100