The Sorrow of Being Immaculate – Long Summertime Burial of Hope
The Sorrow of Being Immaculate – Long Summertime Burial of Hope
Drone Alone Productions
Release date: 07/08/26
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 9/10
It is always a pleasure when someone remembers the work you have done in the past and brings to your attention something they feel you may enjoy. That small token is a very human thing and one that is appreciated by the basically cave-dwelling misanthrope that Dark Juan is. It is also the reason why I am writing to you all, dear readers, about The Sorrow Of Being Immaculate (a problem I share, being as Dark Juan is irresistible to all sexes, as I am devastatingly good looking, witty, urbane, devilishly charming and intelligent and generally just fucking awesome. None of those statements, though, are true beyond the somewhat warped self-image I carry in my head. It is not for nothing that my nickname in school was Lurch) as I very much enjoyed the last album of theirs I came across (figuratively, not literally. I save that for the virginal lambs of God I corrupt in my spare time), being “Suicide Forest”. Here is the link should you wish to refresh your memory of my musings about the one-man Welsh misery merchant – https://www.ever-metal.com/2025/10/06/the-sorrow-of-being-immaculate-suicide-forest/ and it is a jolly good read about a jolly good record.
It is well known that, while not being disdainful of the joys of Metal, Dark Juan’s tastes are rather more esoteric than the mainstream, and he lurks about in the depths of the more extreme edges of the Metal scene to excavate and expose more unusual music that might be of interest to people who may be looking for their next fix of uniqueness, or to the neophyte who wishes to broaden their horizons beyond the gateway bands they have been listening to. This is what excites Dark Juan. Well apart from absinthe-fuelled debauches and defiling religious young ladies. This means that Dark Juan has been on an extended binge of Doom and Drone and Post Metal for quite some time, and my beloved (even though I am a Saesneg) Cymru is home to a singular person, the one-man misanthropy generator that is known only as The Sorrow of Being Immaculate. The Platter of Splatter ™ has known about this new record, “Long Summertime Burial of Hope”, for some time and has had to be dragged, cowering and cowed, out of its hiding place behind the bench in the yard, to have this offering placed upon it.
Wow.
I did not think it would be possible to up the bleakness of the last album. How foolish I am. This entire record is a liminal nightmare, an endless drone of despair and lethargy interspersed with horrific sounds and nervy, inhuman jerking. It is sculpture with sound, except the finished pieces are arabesques with ill-suited limbs, sparking and stuttering automatons that creak, shriek and crackle and metal creations with exposed welds and non-Euclidian geometries, hypercubes in nine dimensions encroaching on a reality where all is shades of black. Even the light. It’s truly horrible to listen to, and this is what makes it so fucking great. It is a record to be played in torture experiments – General Noriega would have surrendered in seconds if the US Armed Forces had had The Sorrow Of Being Immaculate’s output at their disposal. It’s music for regions where quantum mechanics have gone completely haywire and reality is being rewritten out of uncombined quarks and a total rejection of the Theory of Relativity, where right angles are geometrically impossible and mathematics have ceased to function in any meaningful fashion. It is a droning nightmare of endless grey corridors, screaming and meaty thumps behind locked doors with no windows and the kind of lift music that makes you want to pull the teeth out of the jaw of your nearest neighbour with fucking massive pliers. It is noxious fog creeping through cracks in doors and windows, where your fate is sealed and there is absolutely fuck all you can do about it. It is the soundtrack to the death of all hope and the subsequent collapse of the psyche that accompanies it. It is grinding, and metal being pressed into the shape of receivers and bayonet lugs for assault rifles and flamethrowers belching flame at enemies slinking through the shadows of a rain-slick world of endless conflict. It is air-raid sirens and gas alarms in hermetically sealed research facilities, vivisection and meat, flesh and bone being patched together by surgeons forced to be necessarily crude because of an endless supply of casualties…
The Sorrow of Being Immaculate plays something (I hesitate to call it music because music implies tunefulness, virtuosity and a pleasurable experience) that Old Nick would be playing to amuse himself as he takes a break between torturing damned souls. It is the sound of industrialised slaughter, abattoirs full of screaming children, and the endless lament of vanquished foes. It is wanton cruelty, the sound of loved ones leaving, never to return, of hiraeth and the loss of everything.
In short, it is not easy listening. The Welsh person behind this music must have grown up in Merthyr Tydfil and that’s all I am going to say on the matter. Well, there or Port Talbot, although Llanelli is an outside bet too. This record is an elongated Drone of liminality that deliberately does not go anywhere apart from the darkest parts of life. It is deliberately deconstructed music pared back to basic sounds and painful buzzing and humming, all failing electronics, burning insulation and fatal arcs of shorting electricity.
As usual, Dark Juan fucking loves it, but it must be said that you must be quite a singular person to be able to find enjoyment in such unremitting aural bleakness. If you like endless droning that is frequently painful and deeply unsettling, then man do I have the musical project for you. If you value things like tempo, musicality and choruses I suggest that you give The Sorrow Of Being Immaculate the widest of all possible berths. However, if you love the deranged maschinenklang of Throbbing Gristle, the robotic repetitiveness of Suicide, the soundscapes of Shoegaze and Drone and the all-encompassing sonic attack of the likes of Sunn O))) then I would humbly (no, wait, I don’t do humble, I’m fucking Dark Juan), I would demand that you listen to The Sorrow Of Being Immaculate. After all, misery loves company…
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System has come out of hiding, awards The Sorrow Of Being Immaculate 9/10 for a masterpiece of nightmarish soundscapes and onrushing clinical depression, before running for cover once more. The Platter of Splatter ™ has escaped and is on the loose on Rishworth Moor somewhere. Dark Juan has released the hounds and expects it will be recovered shortly.
Track list:
Long Summertime Burial of Hope
Mind Fog
HELLTEETH
Black Obisidian
WitchFrost
LINE-UP:
A deranged madman intent on dragging the world into his own miasma of discontent, sorrow, and all-encompassing hatred.
LINKS:
https://www.instagram.com/drone_alone_prods
https://dronealoneprods.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@dronealone610
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities