Reviews: Shores Of Null/Convocation, Electric Boys, Calcraft, Bragging Rights (Martin Brown, Rich Piva, Spike & Mark Young)

Shores Of Null/Convocation – Latitudes Of Sorrow (Everlasting Spew) [Martin Brown]

Latitudes Of Sorrow is the meeting point between two approaches to grief. Shores of Null, from Rome, bring elegance, melody, and form to the collapse; Convocation, from Helsinki, provide the weight of eternity itself. Together they form one of the most complete doom splits in recent years — a dialogue between beauty and decay.

The Shores Of Null half is steeped in refinement. The production, handled at Bloom Recording Studios by Marco “Cinghio” Mastrobuono, captures an extraordinary sense of depth. Guitars move like ocean swells — layered, chorale-like, never static. The rhythm section carries both gravity and clarity, and the drums breathe with a live feel rare in modern metal production. 

Clean passages are crystalline, separating themselves naturally before the next surge of distortion takes hold. The dynamics are wide, giving every track room to rise and recede rather than compressing the emotion into a single plane.

Vocally, Davide Straccione remains the linchpin. His range from baritone cleans to midrange growls defines the band’s emotional signature — expressive but never theatrical. 

On occasion, the cleans flatten slightly in pitch or projection, yet the sincerity cuts through. It’s the only minor imperfection in a performance otherwise grounded in conviction.

The songs evolve through patient layering: new guitars, harmonies, and percussion patterns enter organically. The White Wound and The Year Without Summer in particular display masterful pacing, each section earning its power through restraint. 

The percussion varies subtly throughout, alternating between rolling tom work and precise cymbal detail, constantly adjusting to the mood rather than dictating it.

Convocation’s contribution forms the darker mirror image. The pain and anger are visceral. Their production is cavernous yet articulate, each note steeped in reverb and low-end pressure. 

The tone is glacial, built from synths, organs, and impossibly slow riffs that push beyond structure into atmosphere. Where Shores Of Null offer clarity and reflection, Convocation descend into a sense of malignant ritual, claustrophobia, and a feeling of being trapped inside yourself with no escape.

For progressive and doom listeners alike, Latitudes Of Sorrow offers the satisfaction of composition, texture, and narrative flow. It’s a record that invites immersion — to feel the movement between despair and resolution, melody and void. 

Impeccably produced, emotionally coherent, and executed with intelligence, it stands as a benchmark for collaborative doom in 2025. 9/10

Electric Boys - Shady Side Of Town (Mighty Music) [Rich Piva]

I have been a fan of Electric Boys since I saw the video for All Lips And Hips on Headbanger’s Ball in 1990. I went and bought the cassette of Funk O Metal Carpet Ride and I was all in. The band’s combination of blues rock, Beatle-esque harmonies and trippiness, funk metal, and hair band swagger combined to make one big fan in this teenage rock fan. I even hung in with the US commercial failure Groovus Maximus, which I still love to this day. 

The Swedish band put out one more record in 1994 but then went on hiatus until 2011, and have been relatively active since then. Their 2023 album Grand Explosivos was fun, and the follow up to that, their new EP Shady Side Of Town, is the same kind of enjoyable batch of songs that these guys have proven they can turn out, leveraging all of those cool influences they brought back in the day.

We get four tracks on Shady Side Of Town, with Head Honcho leading the way with great guitar work, some cool as hell rock with swagger, and some ZZ Top vibes, but heavier. Grand Explosivos has a hair metal vibe to start until the Boys get all Flamenco on us. This is a fun track that fits perfectly with what these guys are all about. 

It’s the Electric Boys and they came from a time where a song called Looking For Vajajay would have fit in perfectly. Does it now? Is it silly but also fun? Is there this over-the-top 70s funk thing going on that is quite infectious? You can answer yes to at least a couple of those questions for sure. The best song on the EP is the closer, Keep It Dark, which has more Grand Funk in it than Motley Crue, but either way is a pretty cool song.

A fun EP which brings back good memories for me, it is nice to see the Electric Boys still going strong with Shady Side Of Town. A band that is always fun and always has some good to offer. 7/10

Calcraft – Reborn Through Torture (Lifeforce Records) [Spike]

This is not a pleasant journey of self-discovery. Calcraft's debut, Reborn Through Torture, is a masterclass in Raw, Hateful Death Metal. 

This record exists purely to assault the listener with uncompromising hostility and a suffocating, dense wall of sound. Named after an infamous executioner, this album is a clinical, relentless study in pain, delivered with zero time wasted on melody or pretence.

The Texas-based outfit defines their sound with the uncompromising credo, "Unrelenting death metal. No trends. No mercy." The sound is immediately overwhelming. This is guts-first sonic savagery, deeply rooted in the legacy of Immolation and Suffocation. 

The guitars are thick, corrosive, and constantly churning, creating a muddy, suffocating atmosphere that feels physically taxing to endure. The percussion is a relentless, unrelenting weapon. 

The drumming favours precision and sustained battery over flashy fills, providing the perfect, inexorable foundation for the hateful payload above it.

The track-list is a blood-soaked manifesto. Satisfying Strangulation begins the descent, immediately showcasing the band’s mastery of dynamics with a raw intensity that sets the stage for auditory execution. 

This is quickly followed by Fuck Blade and Slovakian Carnage, which maintain the suffocating pace, firing off thrashy aggression steeped in cinematic violence. The brutal efficiency of the title Perpetually Stabbed embodies the record’s relentless, unforgiving spirit.

The guttural vocals are buried in the mix, sounding like they are being dragged out of a shallow grave, delivering their payload of hate and darkness. The brief Interlude and Outro offer no sanctuary; they are merely the cold, silent moments of counting the dead before the carnage resumes or the final breath is drawn.

The sequencing is relentless. Tracks like Wolves Sight and Carving Flesh maintain the suffocating momentum, utilizing mid-tempo sections not for breathing room, but to emphasize the sheer, crushing weight of the riff when it eventually drops. 

Purest Pain is a testament to the band’s skill in fusing raw aggression with memorability. The riffs are infectious, but still utterly filthy. Calcraft has delivered exactly the kind of hateful, unforgiving death metal the underground adores. This is a blood-soaked soundtrack to the final scene you never survive. 8/10

Bragging Rights - Carpe Jugulum (Self Released) [Mark Young]

If it says Sludge infused progressive death metal, then you know that there is a possibility that this will not be a smooth ride. Its likely that you won’t get on with all of it, depending upon your stance and what genre you lean into. 

I’ll be honest I’ve bloody peppered this with repeated listens as part of the commute to work and I’m still not sure how I feel about it, even as I sit to write this out, I haven’t got a fix on where this review is going or where I’m going with it.

I’ll Make My Heaven brings them in almost with a gentle touch, Shakespeare intoning over it which distracts you as the rhythm picks up in movement, slowly and assuredly. It makes a change having an introduction / intro track that has thought behind it especially as it launches into the title track. 

Carpe Jugulum picks up and runs. It’s solid, ranging in speed but establishes its level of intensity early on. It’s fairly brutal too until they decide not to be brutal any longer. You can hear where that sludge comes into play, especially during the closing seconds before Golem lurches into view. It’s not luck that the two are set together they are, der Golem is pitched like its namesake – slower, methodical until it bursts into life. 

Quake follows this, with a more expansive vocal delivery that is just pure anguish. The notes about being for fans of Gojira will pick up the audio cues on this one as it does smack of them. Thief Of Time vox sortta reminds me someone and for the life of me I can’t place it. 

Its like there are two songs being played at the same time in its early phase before they decide to torture you by inverted gallop. That feeling of them actively trying to stretch the listening experience out beyond its natural state is present on each track with varying degrees of success. 

Grown Cold takes a similar build and mines it to death and represents what I feel is a lull in proceedings.  Its not bad material, it’s just not interesting to me, the early thrill has dissipated and I’m now treating this as a war of attrition. What is evident is that on the previous listens I’ve gotten to here and had enough. 

Maskerade is next but is familiar in the same way that Grown Cold is. It tries to rouse me but the reliance on a certain build has me giving up on it.

For me its taken a number of listens to decide how I was leaning with this and even now I’m unsure in terms of how I should score it. What I will say is that it sounds fantastic. I’ve mentioned before that I mainly set up the reviews as I’m driving to and from work and if it can survive that trip without being skipped onwards it’s doing something right. 

However, Bragging Rights don’t quite succeed with this due to a number of tracks that flounder. I mentioned Thief Of Time earlier, it seems to go on as a punishment and Wait For The End with its repeating measures is interesting at some point I became disengaged and pressed forward. I’ve noted that as I get into the depths of the album my ability to stick with it goes. 

That’s not to say that the later tracks are to be avoided, Prey comes in and steals the show, a more in your face and aggressive arrangement that seeks to lift the energy up but you know what it’s like when you have more or less made your mind up with something. Its like that for this, because overall there are too many tracks that share the same approach and it’s a shame because it sounds so good. 

Even when those songs kick in a little, any favourable feeling I have has left and its too little, too late. Ultimately, I’ve given it a good go, and maybe it wasn’t for me. That’s not to say you shouldn’t give it a go. You could love it. 6/10