(written by Islander)
Latitudes of Sorrow is a new five-song split featuring the music of two bands whose past music has garnered substantial praise both here and elsewhere: Convocation from Helsinki and Shores of Null from Rome. The esteemed Everlasting Spew Records will release the split on November 21st.
At the beginning of this month we had the privilege of premiering one of Convocation’s compelling songs from the split, “Empty Room,” and now we’re following that with the premiere of “An Easy Way” by Shores of Null.
Shores of Null, photo by by Arianna Savo
One of the aspects of Latitudes of Sorrow that makes it so worth having is that the bands’ songs are something like a musical Venn diagram. They intersect and overlap, but what they share is mainly a rendition of dark moods, which explains why pairing them in this split is understandable. But the ways in which they create those moods — the spaces outside the intersection — are distinctively different.
In thinking again about Convocation’s songs, an excerpt from our recent interview of Evoken’s John Paradiso came to mind. The inquisitor posited the existence of different types of funeral doom and asked where Evoken might fall within those categories. He answered: “Evoken to me is total audio devastation with hints of hope and beauty thrown in simply to intensify the desolation.” Convocation’s “Empty Room” is like that — sometimes overpowering and ultimately apocalyptic in its rendering of devastation but also incorporating melodies of spectral lament, not exactly hopeful but tragically beautiful.
The music of Shores of Null, on the other hand, doesn’t slot into the rubric of funeral death/doom. Traditions of doom metal certainly play important roles in their songwriting, but so does black metal, and even the elaborately melodic doom traditions they embrace differ in important ways from those of Convocation. The vocals are also quite different. And yet feelings of torment, agony, loss, and hopelessness still seem to lie within the emotional core of both bands.
“An Easy Way” is the first of three Shores of Null songs on the split, and it quickly begins in a very un-easy way, delivering slowly writhing and uncomfortably dissonant notes along with gritty, ragged growls. In its upper reaches, the music also miserably wails in glistening tones, in counterpoint to vividly throbbing beats.
From there, the band ratchet up the music’s intensity, deploying hammering drums and tremolo’d riffing that creates a searing form of distress. At that point the vocals also change, soaring in song, but far from joyful in mood. The band then continue shifting gears and sensations (as well as the high/low vocal stylings), intertwining sounds of gloom and torment, as well as riffing that throbs and captivating melodies that both miserably sparkle and moodily flow above a heavy low-frequency undercurrent.
At times the music seems to grieve and yearn, or to become dour and bitter, leavened with bursts of aggression that include hard jolts at the song’s conclusion.
This Roman band’s other two songs on the split are “The White Wound” and “The Year Without Summer“, which includes guest vocals by Convocation‘s Marko Neuman (another point of intersection on the Venn diagram). Both of them again vividly display Shores of Null‘s songwriting dynamism, stylistic diversity, and sharpness of execution.
Shades of Paradise Lost seem to hover around “The White Wound“, an especially haunting and heart-breaking but also majestic song, and both the gothic singing, the agonized growls, and the severe strangled snarls are especially captivating.
“The Year Without Summer” (great song title, that one) is the slowest of the band’s three songs on the split, and its guitar harmonies, while deeply melancholy, are beautifully panoramic and almost pastoral, capable of creating a mournful spell. But the band also deliver a swift chugging burst coupled with harrowing growls, leading the way toward an exhilarating and even uplifting crescendo of intensity.
Altogether, these three songs are a great display of Shores of Null‘s multifarious talents.
SHORES OF NULL:
Davide Straccione – Vocals
Gabriele Giaccari – Guitars
Raffaele Colace – Guitars
Matteo Capozucca – Bass
Emiliano Cantiano – Drums
We should add that in addition to “The Empty Room” the split also includes Convocation’s “Abaddon’s Shadow,” a 10 1/2 minute excursion into lightless depths and celestial heights. It’s an immensely heavy, earth-shaking experience, and Marko Neuman‘s wide-ranging harsh vocals are truly jaw-dropping, spine-tingling, and scary as hell, truly one of the most stunning harsh vocal performances this writer has heard this year.
But while Convocation powerfully jolt listeners off their feet with gargantuan, brutal grooves, they also interweave a full panoply of vivid drum-fills and mystical, stratospheric keys that add to the song’s daunting magnificence.
To return to where we started, there is a clear intersection of doom (in different manifestations) between these two bands’ songs, but neither of them wallow in the gutters of their souls. They use their own distinct styles to create music of rare, cathartic and captivating power.
The Shores Of Null side of the split was produced by Shores Of Null and Marco “Cinghio” Mastrobuono. It was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Bloom Recording Studios by Marco “Cinghio” Mastrobuono between April and July 2025.
Lauri Laaksonen of Convocation created the cover art for the split, with layout by Giorgio Spevo. Split mastering and vinyl mastering was done by Carlo Altobelli at Toxic Basement.
Everlasting Spew will release Latitudes of Sorrow on November 21st on CD, cassette tape, and digital formats, and they plan to release a vinyl edition in the spring of next year.
PRE-ORDER:
Physical: https://bit.ly/42PbNY8
Digital: https://everlastingspew.bandcamp.com/album/latitudes-of-sorrow
SHORES OF NULL:
https://www.facebook.com/shoresofnull
CONVOCATION:
https://www.facebook.com/convocationdoom
EVERLASTING SPEW:
https://www.facebook.com/everlastingspew
https://everlastingspewrecords.bandcamp.com