Soror Dolorosa
No More Heroes

No, it is not an old Anna Oxa record. No, despite the cover, there's not even a lady singing on this record. And although the band's name might superficially recall the moniker Sopor Aeternus, this record is not even particularly painful for our eardrums.

Soror Dolorosa is a French band, and their leader is Andy Julia, a somewhat known figure in the thriving transalpine post-black scene, having played drums in Peste Noir and designed booklets for notable bands in the scene like Alcest and Les Discrets. And indeed, it might whet your appetite, but this is not a black-metal record, and, to be honest, it doesn't even have those shoegaze influences divinely intertwined with the buzzing guitars typical of black-metal, a creative touch that made the aforementioned bands popular. So, what do these Soror Dolorosa actually play?

Nothing but dark-wave, and of the most typical kind: Andy Julia, left alone at the helm of his personal project (which with “No More Heroes”, their last release in 2013, arrives at the milestone of the second full-length, since the first album of original songs “Blind Scenes” came out in 2011, preceded a couple of years earlier by the debut EP “Severance”), Andy Julia, as mentioned, merely looks back, precisely in the direction of the glorious early eighties, limiting himself to dusting off the clichés of the genre with clear sounds in line with today’s productions. Therefore, we should not expect new champions of post-punk 2.0 revivalism (like Interpol or Soft Moon), because in 2013 Soror Dolorosa do not aspire to sound original, or at the very least personal, but they limit themselves to wielding their instruments with the didactic approach of a professional cover band. No, they do not step out from the dualism of The Cure/The Sisters of Mercy, a tendency mainly noticeable in Julia’s vocal attitude, affected by bipolar syndrome, which leads him – quite spontaneously, it must be said – to take on the guise of a mournful Robert Smith, only to then tread in the footsteps of a brooding Andrew Eldritch: two different worlds of interpreting dark, and not even too reconcilable if you think about it deeply.

The music follows the wake traced by the tenor and sobbing evolutions of the vocalist (also on keyboards, although they carve out a subordinate role in the band’s sound): a solid rhythmic base, consisting of a beautiful, always prominent bass and a drum that strikes with the precision of a metronome; an impeccable rhythmic base on which the shifting melody of the guitars rests, often divided between hypnotic arpeggios and electric caresses that rarely decide to scratch. Leaving aside the songwriting (which draws heavily from the repertoire of the bands mentioned above, specifically from the “Seventeen Seconds”/“Faith” phase concerning the Cure, and from the masterpieces “First and Last and Always”/“Floodland” concerning the Sisters), Soror Dolorosa’s merit is to create a muscular, magnetic and at the same time elegant and refined sound, shamelessly romantic, at times even affected, made of soft atmospheres that at times like to surge into more incisive passages with a delicious epic taste (bringing into play a third pillar of the British dark epic, the essential Fields of the Nephilim).

“Silver Square” opens the dance with the vigorous pulsation of the bass, soon joined by initially relentless and then irresistible drums: the guile of guitars and vocals immediately dissolves any kind of reference to Joy Division (it will be apparent from the very beginning that the band has no will to rummage in the murky and retrace the shoots of an exhausted existentialism: more than anything, it evokes the artificial pathos of another European band, Spanish this time, from a few years ago, called Heroes del Silencio). “Sound&Death” follows the same pattern, borrowing even certain nuances of the more sugary Chris Isaak (a tendency detectable in other parts of the album), and it is clear that in this initial pair (created ad hoc to take the hand and involve from the very first moment the lazier and less attentive listener), the more seismic component of the Sisters of Mercy prevails, soon mitigated by the sentimentality of the third track “Dany”, which instead prefers to look over to “Disintegration”. Ultimately, between these two poles lies Soror Dolorosa's proposal, showcasing their strengths (good performance and interpretative skills) and their flaws (absolute lack of originality) right from the first shots fired.

And excuse me if I open a trivial (very trivial) parenthesis, but necessary: how great were The Cure! I mean it, beyond the rhetoric: how many beautiful and diverse albums have they given us, and how many vital injections have they performed within the genre over time, opening the doors to the most disparate developments? In a landscape where even the greatest have become legends for two/three albums born of inspiration soon shipwrecked. It was already known before, but it is even clearer now listening to acts like Soror Dolorosa, that to create great dark music you don’t just need good musicians (something not to be taken for granted within the environment), but you also need a genius (Robert Smith) and maybe another creative that rises above the average (Gallup): it is clear that in the case of our Soror Dolorosa the affair stops at the affirmation of achieving the first stage (that of good musicians), but does not proceed further and for this reason their music must be taken for what it is.

But if I am here to talk about this record, if I am here to make you spend time on it, there must be a reason, and the reason is that despite everything, our Guys manage to win us over and endear themselves to us, giving us nice sensations, especially thanks to two or three pearls that solace the expense of purchasing their last effort. The gloomy “Hologram”, for example, is a leaden night ballad, almost Lynchian in its advancing, which evokes the best gothic-rock that one can think of (even certain comparisons to the psychedelic gothic of Tiamat from “A Deeper Kind of Slumber” are not inappropriate), dominated by the cavernous voice of Andy Julia, here more than elsewhere reminiscent of the cursed ego of Andrew Eldritch. While the beautiful “Wormhole” is a clear tribute to the decadent spleen of the most romantic and dreamy Robert Smith. The concluding “Exodus”, perhaps the track most endowed with personality, finally materializes those electro-shoegaze glimmers that we would have expected from the start. The track’s tail, gently fading into a poetic dissolve, leaves a good taste in the mouth and well predisposes towards a new listening: and it is precisely the repeated listening that will disperse the doubts and highlight the positive side of Soror Dolorosa’s music.

If after a first listen the judgment can therefore be detached if not cynically malevolent (let’s say three balls to at least reward the good workmanship of the product), with the necessary time to metabolize these nine (also long) tracks, the overall rating can only improve (a nice album, after all, this “No More Heroes”, music that flows, entertains, and at times even moves, four balls, ultimately?). But even in this reassessment process, there remains the awareness, indeed the certainty, that not only does not the history of music pass through here, but neither does the personal development of trends born and developed almost thirty years ago. Therefore, it is hardly likely we will remember Soror Dolorosa, but for today we can simply limit ourselves to listening to their good music without too many preconceptions.

For the most relentless nostalgics.