Drowning

A solo atmospheric post-BM act formed by Australian musician Mortcer (guitarist / vocalist for BM duo Vagrond) in 2021, Bleeding Sorrow quickly put out its debut work "Drowning", an album exploring themes of depression, isolation and loneliness. With titles like "Grief", "Sombre" and "Sorrow", you've probably figured the album should be cold, dismal and so bleak that frosty mist should be floating out of the speakers. Surprisingly though Bleeding Sorrow's atmo-BM turns out to have an epic and almost radiant edge even when Mortcer screams and wails at the top of his voice like a ragged ghost falling apart into blobs of ether. "Sombre", the album's first song proper (after a gentle post-rock instrumental introduction), shows off Bleeding Sorrow's core elements of warbling melodic tremolo guitars shooting out near-bluesy riffs and Mortcer's thin screechy voices fighting the strings for attention. The mood has a desperate air with instruments dipping into dark urban blues minor-key territory often throughout most songs.

As the album continues, the songs are not greatly different in tempo, mood and the tortured style of vocal attack, though they have their distinct repeating riff loops that give them their identities and the power and swelling drama they need. Guitar tones have a slight grinding edge that makes them glittery and hypnotic. I have to admit though once the album reaches halfway point, the vocals become irritating as the guitar riffs alone (along with the rare lead guitar solo) can carry the songs and sustain the emotion and melancholy. Sure enough, on "Ripples" the guitars dominate the first couple of minutes at least by alternating between noisy yet shining layers of guitar and a quieter ambient guitar episode before the shrill wailing sets in: that's a bit of interesting experimental music that I'd have liked to hear more of on the album.

Final track "Surge" has an ambiguous feel (deliberate, I think) of triumph and a tremendous sadness suggesting loss; even the track's title has hints of a formidable wave of power and at the same the notion of something being washed away forever. At the same time the song has undeniable grandeur and majesty, and for the once the vocals are challenged by another vocal, clean-toned and confident in nature.

The songs' repetitive nature makes them more like pieces of layered tremolo guitars dominated by one or two main riffs that go on and on until the songs break and then a new track begins. Within each song, beneath the repetition, listeners can sense the inner emptiness of depression and lonely isolation. There isn't much progress or development in the message the songs carry and listeners can start to feel that, hear one song, you've heard them all. What the music has going for it is its rich ringing tremolo guitar textures which can be very mesmerising and immersive, and Mortcer's ear for dramatic melody which, together with those guitar tones, could be the foundation of incredibly splendid post-BM sound art.