The Crowning Of The Sorcerer King

While I was placing my order with Metal Blade for the newest Cannibal Corpse record, I decided to add the new Sorcerer album to the cart as well. I mean, we are coming to the end of 2017, so I might as well, try to pick up a few more new releases before I have to put together my End Of A Year post.

I was digging Sorcerer's debut album, In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross, when it was released a couple years ago, so I was down to check out the new album. The band draws some serious influence from the Tony Martin era of Black Sabbath, and since I love those records...and happened to be spinning Sabbath's Headless Cross repeatedly at the time I was in the Metal Blade store, it just made sense to finally grab the latest vinyl offering from Sorcerer.

With the first single from the album, Sirens, Sorcerer definitely keep that Tony Martin Sabbath/melodic doom sound intact. This stuff is really good, but goddamn, the songs are so long that I can get a little bored by the end of it. Outside of Sirens and an instrumental track, the rest of the songs clock in well over 6 minutes each...which can be too much sometimes.

Hand numbered and limited to 200 for the great looking clear/black swirl colored vinyl.

Dark Tower Of The Sorcerer

I've listened to a lot of Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath this year. Over the summer, Cross Purposes was easily my most played Sabbath album. I know a lot of people write off the Tony Martin albums, but while they don't measure up to the original Ozzy and Dio stuff, those records that have him at the mic, are no slouch.

After reading some high praise for the new Sorcerer album, I decided to check out the video for The Dark Tower Of The Sorcerer. Oh man, those vocals reminded me so much of Tony Martin! I downloaded the album, and it immediately worked it's way into my daily playlists alongside Headless Cross and Cross Purposes. Epic doom at it's finest.

I don't know why Metal Blade only has such a limited offering of new vinyl releases in their US store. Nuclear Blast have stepped up their game recently for the US, and you would think that Metal Blade could follow suit. Apparently they think that the States is still fixated on CDs.

I was tempted to get colored vinyl from overseas for this great record, but with money being a bit tight as we come into the end of the year, I decided to save a dollar or twenty and just order the black vinyl from a US distributor. Good deal.

The vinyl version of In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross contains an exclusive track, The Legion Of The Serpent, so yeah, vinyl is the way to go for this.