When it comes to epic doom metal, it has to be said that there’s rarely any surprises to be found in the genre and whilst In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross by Sorcerer is a fairly good listen, it doesn’t feature anything ground-breakingly new, so to speak. Although the band formed in 1988, In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross is actually Sorcerer’s debut full-length – the band split in 1992 after recording two demos, but reformed in 2010.
In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross is not a difficult listen and is easy enough to get into. The vocals are substantial with a nice amount of power to them and are delivered with a lot of passion, and the instrumentation is heavy, yet not so heavy that it’s overpowering. It also feels like an album that will go down live – it’s one of those albums you can imagine being played from a band on a massive stage to thousands of adoring fans.
However, it just doesn’t seem to have that special something. It doesn’t quite stand out from the crowd and the album as a whole doesn’t quite manage to fully engage your interest and the band doesn’t quite immerse you in the music. It’s good and it’s definitely listenable, but unfortunately in this day and age that alone isn’t enough.
5/10
