Release Date October 16th, 2026
Format Digital/CD/Vinyl
Genre Melodic Death/Doom Metal
Origin Italy
Formed in Rome in 2013, Shores Of Null built their name on a version of melodic death doom that leans on melody as much as on gloom. Albums like "Quiescence", "Black Drapes For Tomorrow" and the single-track hour of "Beyond The Shores (On Death And Dying)" put them on solid ground across Europe, and "The Loss Of Beauty" sharpened their songwriting into something tighter and more direct. The line-up of Davide Straccione, Gabriele Giaccari, Raffaele Colace, Matteo Capozucca and Emiliano Cantiano has stayed intact long enough for the chemistry to show, and the split "Latitudes Of Sorrow" kept them visible while this one took shape.
"Homesick" runs ten tracks over about fifty minutes and was recorded at Bloom Recording Studios with Marco "Cinghio" Mastrobuono, who also handled an extended pre-production phase. The results are the cleanest the band has ever sounded: guitars cut through the low end without thinning out, the drums sit forward, and Straccione's shifts between growls and clean singing never get buried. Natalie Koskinen of Shape Of Despair joins on "The Numbing Void", and Shaun MacGowan of My Dying Bride adds violin there and on "Dreaming Of A Scar", both used sparingly enough to matter. Lyrically the album circles nostalgia, absence and the idea of home as a memory or a wound instead of a place, and that theme holds across the whole thing without turning into a lecture.
Musically this is Shores Of Null doing what they do at a high level. "Two Mountains" and "Bleed To Life" pair heavy riffing with melodies that stick after two listens, while "Society Is The Murderer" pushes harder and faster than most of what surrounds it. The slower material, particularly "Dreaming Of A Scar" and the closing "Disappear", is where the band's melancholy side gets the most space, and the violin gives those tracks a texture the guitars alone could not manage. Where the album slips slightly is in its middle stretch, where a couple of mid-tempo tracks blur into each other on early spins. The hooks arrive, the arrangements are smart, the emotional pull is real. Fans of Paradise Lost, Swallow The Sun and later Katatonia will be at home here, and anyone who came on board with "The Loss Of Beauty" has no reason to hesitate.
|7.8
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