Though they were ultimately lost in a sea of death metal talent flooding the world during the early '90s, New York's Sorrow do deserve some credit for at least trying to be different. Not only did they refuse to entertain their label's demands that they utilize
Scott Burns' production and Dan SeaGrave artwork for their debut album,
Hatred & Disgust, like most every other band on the scene; the quartet also draped their songs with elements of various death metal subgenres, without quite committing entirely to any of them. If anything, their doleful, above-average length songs (only six of which account for this album's entire 40 minutes) most often subscribed to the deliberate trudge of the death/doom style, which was quite popular at the time thanks to major exponents like
Paradise Lost and
Obituary. But one of Sorrow's best distinguishing qualities was how they used these predominant slow passages to set up thrilling bursts of speed thrashing, often marked by sizzling melodic solos on the likes of "Insatiable," "Illusion of Freedom," and the colossal epic, "Unjustified Reluctance." Vocalist Andy Marchione (recently recovered from a debilitating coma induced by carbon monoxide poisoning) possessed a cavernous but still quite intelligible death growl, allowing listeners to discern the group's abnormally sober, real-world lyrics (no demons and very little gore imagery to be found here); yet these also proved a tad too smart for their own good at times (see "Forced Repression" and "Separate Adjectives"), feeling more like college lectures than entertainment. By comparison, the savage, unrestrained anti-religion spite of "Human Error" (choice lyrics: "Curse the Priest, Spit at the church") sounds wonderfully refreshing in their over-the-top provocations. As for Sorrow, motivational problems would conspire with marketing disinterest from their label to spell the end of their career following this release; but
Hatred & Disgust remains a secondary volume from death metal's golden era that's more interesting than most. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia