Kingdom Of Sorrow – Behind The Blackest Tears – Review

Release Date: June 8th, 2010
Record Label: Relapse Records
Genre: Metal

Kingdom of Sorrow are unleashing their new beast Behind the Blackest Tears. The side project of Jamey Jasta and Kirk Windstein may sound great originally, and hell their first album had the new and fresh factor to carry it along with the riffs. But the twelve new tracks show the tears at the seams were they were hidden in awe during the first album. When you dive in you may still find the riffs enjoyable from Kirk and company but overall they don’t have the same fresh feeling as before. Then the vocal tandem of Jasta and Kirk simply does not mesh well.

I feel bad bashing two greats but this idea that looks and sounds great on paper and in the bios comes out poorly through the speakers. As I sift through the pile of mid tempo metal tracks with that hint of sludge, I figured out one thing Crowbar rules and I rushed to my music library to listen to some classics.

Now it’s not a bad album, but if you are a fan of either legends main projects, Kingdom of Sorrow more less makes you scratch your head than put on Time Heals Nothing or Satisfaction is the Death of Desire. The album has some upside with tracks like “With Barely a Breath,” which was probably the most balanced effort, but overall I was pretty disappointed. In all the album feels like material that got tossed out from Crowbar rehearsals with Jasta jumping in and laying vocals over it.

Sometimes mixing two great things work and you get pure gold, but most of the time things fall a tad short and their original incarnation is what is desired, that is how I feel about Kingdom of Sorrow and Behind the Blackest Tears. The second half of the album is better than the first but still doesn’t shift my opinion of the album. I am going with the try it before you buy approach check out a track or two even if you are a tad star struck. It is almost scary sometimes how similar some of the tracks come to generic metal and towards Slipknot like delivery “Salvation Denied.” In all honesty I tried to like the album, but after three times through the mix just didn’t mesh as well as the vision. ~James Terry

Score: 2.5/5

Track Listing:
1. Enlightened to Extinction
2. God’s Law in the Devil’s Land
3. Monuments of Ash
4. Behind the Blackest Tears
5. Envision the Divide
6. From Heroes to Dust
7. Along the Path to Ruin
8. With Barely a Breath
9. The Death We Owe
10. Sleeping Beast
11. Torchlight Procession
12. Salvation Denied