Album review : SINNER’S BLOOD – Dark Horizons

Frontiers [Release date : 27.09.24]

On their second full studio album on the Frontiers’ label, Sinner’s Blood ramp up the menacingly brooding rhetoric on their new recording, Dark Horizons.

Chilean duo, Nasson – songwriter, producer, guitars, and James Robledo – vocalist, have followed their 2020 debut album, The Mirror Star, with another melodic/power metal album of depth and considerable amplititude.

Lyrically it’s a hard sell, with songs like ‘Bound’, ‘It Comes In The Dark, ‘Redemption Or Fire’, and the title track, ‘Dark Horizons’, the personal, the political, the observational, looking to create something profoundly illuminating. The tracks are as moody and atmospheric as the titles suggest.

Meantime, Nasson creates an aural landscape to help us understand what is going on in the narrative.

By incorporating the heavy from heavy metal (Firestorm and Poison); the power from power metal (Not Enough and Victim Of The Will) and the melodic from melodic metal (Enemy and The Man, The Burden, The Sea), Nasson has solidified a unique production style.

You can almost feel the constant seismic rumble of opener, ‘Bound’ even before the music begins. The more immediate ‘A Voice Within’, a well defined acoustic ballad, steps outside the circle. A perfectly placed ray of sunshine, lighting up the darkness created by the surrounding tracks.

This is a fine album. Robledo can sing, no doubt about that, but its Nasson’s writing and expert production that wins the prize. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 28 October 2024

THE RASMUS Rest In Pieces (Better Noise Music)
THE PLAGUE What Else Can I Do (FiXT)
STAR CIRCUS Turn The Tide (indie)
DEFENCES Breathe It In (Long Branch Records)

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09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
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14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Singer Songwriter)