Sun of the Dying shines brighter in 2025.
Having been fairly quiet since their last release, the Spanish band led by Eduardo Guilló (vocals), Casuso (guitar), Roberto Rayo (guitar), José Yuste (bass), Diego Weser (drums), and David Muñoz (keyboards) continues its adventure with AOP Records for the release of its third album, A Throne of Ashes.
Martyrs gently opens this new chapter with a sound that is initially very discreet, then suddenly bursts into flames, carrying us away with its tormented rhythm between tranquility and imposing riffs, sheltering the vocal parts that also alternate between clear singing and tortured roars. The vocalist is very expressive, following the different changes in the instrumental parts that occur very naturally, taking advantage of the length of the song to weave its haunting atmosphere, joining Black Birds Beneath Your Sky, which quickly becomes more aggressive, using Old School tones to further deepen the contrast between each element. Regular listeners will recognize a certain Finnish coldness in this jerky track with its shrill harmonics, but ultimately it is the luminous heaviness that prevails and leads us to the reassuring With Wings Aflame, where Eduardo is accompanied by singer Antinoë in a melancholic duet that dances before us, but which leaves us a long moment to breathe before accelerating thanks to the double kick. However, the finale plunges us back into its torpor before giving way to The Greatest of Winter and its majestic keyboards. There is still a certain oppression to this track, which is capable of offering us moments of complete calm as well as being as heart-wrenching as possible, as when the violence gradually resurfaces in the second part before the final explosion, then House of Asterion immediately takes over to slow down and lull us in turn. The saturation returns regularly to strike us, embellished by the keyboards that make it theatrical, once again reinforcing the gap between the two extremes, but it is once again the finale that is the most striking before Of Absence allows us a final respite, then plunges us headfirst into its bath of coldness, while keeping a few solid accelerations up its sleeve to surprise us, just like the sample before the last spark of life, which will also eventually fade away.
Sun of the Dying has mastered Doom/Death and religiously applies its lessons, alternating between coldness, oppression, striking elements, and heart-wrenching vocals on A Throne of Ashes. A must-have for fans of the genre.
90/100