Album Review: Shores of Null – Homesick

Album Review: Shores of Null – Homesick

Reviewed by Oli Gonzalez

Time for a bit of doom metal, this time from Shores of Null, with their 5th album “Homesick”. A new band for me but one I was eager to get my teeth into.

Coming in as a five piece, the Scandinavian act…oh wait hang on *checks notes* Shores Of Null are actually ITALIAN! One listen to the ice-cold melancholic doom vibes radiating from the speakers and you’d be sure they were from frosty Finland. Take the album’s opening track ‘Allies Before Defeat’ for instance. The Swallow The Sun style bleakness is there for all to admire (which sounds like an odd sentence, admittedly), whilst Davide’s vocals have the strength and melodic weight of Amorphis frontman Tomi! The strong hypnotic bass lines propel the band, laying a foundation for the blazing leads and the aforementioned anthemic vocals of Davide. Though ‘Son Of The Tide’ ups the ante of bleakness via piercing lead guitars that shatter any shred of joy in your heart. Though when combined with Davide’s array of colossal growled vocals, this makes for a cocktail that’s oddly intoxicating and addictive! Especially with that closing passage!

If ‘Son Of The Tide’ was bleak, ‘Dreaming Of A Scar’ ensures any residual serotonin is depleted from your system. If you feel nothing here, if you aren’t moved by the weight of the piano and violins, you may be a cyborg!

You wouldn’t normally think of doom metal bands as having huge anthemic choruses, would you? Well that’s what you get with ‘Society Is The Murderer’. One iteration of the instantly memorable and infectious vocal line here will have you hooked! The band understands the inherent power here and wastes no time in deploying this weapon early on, at around about the 25 second mark! This feels like a song where the chorus was created first, and the rest of the song built around it.

As “Homesick” progresses, Shores Of Null continue to outdo themselves! The sheer gravity and apocalyptic density of ‘The Numbing Void’ is enough to send shivers down your spine and make you contemplate your own fragile mortality! Genuinely, this is lethal and should be handled with caution.

Then comes ‘Another Breath’. Seemingly happy to stay on the marauding and bludgeoning path, Emiliano seems to have remembered his double kick pedal and unleashed a ferocious assault on the bass drum that would make any thrash metal drummer purr in admiration! This is an injection of energy that we didn’t think we needed but we’re sure happier for having been given it! Surely this would have worked better earlier in the album? As a bit of an energizer at the midpoint, when people’s attention spans naturally start to wane? In either case, this represents one of the highs for the album.

“Homesick” captures the essence of Finnish doom metal elegantly, seamlessly blending individual musical prowess with an underlining glacial bite. Deeply emotional and powerful, Shores Of Null are onto something here!

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