Weeping Sores is the progressive death/doom project of Pyrrhon’s Doug Moore, who has endured great pains to finish The Convalescence Agonies over the last five years. Suffering through a crippling shoulder injury and grueling revalidation therapy, the album is aptly titled and carries the weight of a harrowing redemption arch. Moore himself states that finishing this album took all of his efforts and then some, and would have failed if not for the support of others. Staunchly backed by second member and drummer Steve Schweigler, the musical roster is further fleshed out by Annie Blythe on cello, Brendon Randall-Myers on keys, Lev Sloujitel on (very elusive) banjo, and Pete Lloyd on additional guitar duty. Considering the musical pedigree and life-altering struggle involved, I approach reviewing this magnificent flesh behemoth with humility and morbid fascination.
After six long years ripening in the meat locker, Weeping Sores have shambled back into the daylight with syncopated steps. Like a gory, well choreographed slasher scene, The Convalescence Agonies both repulses and mesmerizes with every fell sweep of the scything riff and each screech of the cello. Snare drum hits snap like bones that never healed right, and bass strings pop below the surface like malformed tendons. Sparingly used keys add peeling layers of atmosphere, while guttural growls and shearing screams gurgle from below and howl down from above respectively. Like an expert vivisection, every glistening layer is perfectly presented for the listener’s perception.
The Convalescence Agonies opens like a yawning gash with “Arctic Summer”, immediately juxtaposing a satisfyingly thick and viscous guitar tone with fragile cello, subtle keyboards and screams that wouldn’t be amiss on a DSBM album. The song lurches back and forth between massive death/doom passages and some kind of dissonant, demented chamber music that invokes Anareta and Exulansis. At the five and a half minute mark, the song speeds up to a vicious, urgent blaze of putrid glory. Horrendous riffing is ensconced in atmospheric keys, before slowing back down to a measured, tortured crawl. “Empty Vessel Hymn”, easily the shortest track on the album, immediately impresses with an impeccable guitar intro, quickly joined by deft, syncopated and almost jazzy drum work courtesy of Schweigler. The song has an exploratory and almost playful quality to it, like a curious child examining a dead animal it found in an empty street, furtively poking at the exposed entrails with a stick. Short and sweet like the smell of rotting meat, the song veers into almost black metal drumming paired with organy keys before abruptly sewing itself up.
“Sprawl into the City of Sorrow” regales a tale of urbanised apathy in its lyrics, aided by hope-shredding guitar work and a cello melody that speaks of being stuck in a brutalist concrete prison of spiraling thoughts and dilapidated stairwells. The melodies, themes and undercurrent of paralyzing anxiety remind of Ashenspire’s Hostile Architecture. The song is thematically quite powerful,and clearly well thought out in its structure. Warranting slight criticism, the last three minutes do tend to drag on a bit as a single riff is worked out further and further, before being stripped down to its basics again. In its eventual flayed state, the relative lack of meathooks means if there was any fat to trim off this plate of fine cuts turning in the pale light of an abandoned underground garage, it would be here.
“Pleading for the Scythe” sweeps in with a deceptively tranquil guitar opening. Coupled with the massive, funeral doom-esque riff lends the song an Ahab-adjacent grandeur. From the three minute mark, this murderous number swings for the jugular, harvesting heads with a grim death metal conviction. About six minutes in, the listener is subjected to a squealing and uncomfortable guitar solo, before some excellent progressive death metal riffing a la The Way of All Flesh era Gojira delivers the final deep cut and hits the bones with a bit of grind. Repose is not often offered, and on the titular album closer we suffer and strive to keep up as Doug Moore must have done himself while writing and playing these monstrous compositions. Riffs like ripping ligaments assault the listener as Schweigler batters the taut skins of his kit and the listener’s eardrums. Understatedly beautiful melodies subtly suffuse this track, culminating in a fretfully beautiful cello passage about six minutes into “The Convalescence Agonies”. A brief reprieve is finally offered, before the crutches are ripped from the listener’s hands once more as a dexterous drum fill announces the final stretch of this arduous but ultimately life-affirming journey. Growls and screams duel and are stitched together into chimeric meat creatures, a last frantic guitar solo goes through the motions and the album thrashes furiously before letting out its final breath in a laboriously beautiful outro of cello and keys.
On top of the excellent writing and phenomenal technical performances (especially considering the physical trauma Moore went through), the production on this album truly merits extolling. The mixing (Chris Grigg), mastering (Gregg Chandler), and additional production work done by Joe Smiley (drums specifically) and by Doug Moore himself is an absolute work of art. The guitar tone and snare sound especially blow most modern death metal bands completely out of the murky, muddled water,and give the aforementioned Horrendous a run for their money. Well-penned but never overwrought or obtuse lyrics and a beautiful but ever so slightly sickening piece of album artwork by Caroline Harrison delivers the final masterful brushstroke. This is not always an easy album to process, and the soundscape is not particularly varied. It is however tightly and expertly written and performed, and considering the fact that there are few bands who occupy a similar sonic niche, it’s relative lack of variety should not be a significant detractor. Now you are next in the shambling, shuffling queue: prostrate yourself before this beautiful, livid, seeping flesh giant. Its embrace is as inexorable and life-affirming as your own mortality.