The press reactions for ’Reign Of The Reaper‘ are nothing but outstanding. The album tops this month’s magazine soundchecks of Aardschok in Holland (“In fact, the fourth album of our Swedish friends is of an extremely high level from beginning to end and does not show a single weak moment. And that is more often the exception than the rule these days.”) and Rock Hard in Germany with a 9,5 out of 10 review („Not since “Battle Hymns” – or “Into Glory Ride” for that matter – has such a goosebump atmosphere been created. The album is nothing less than the quintessential release in the intersection of epic metal, doom metal and traditional heavy metal!“).
“Reign Of The Reaper“ ended up on #2 in the Deaf Forever (Germany) magazine soundcheck and got praised with another 9,5/10 review (“The rhythm section combines the punch and groove of Appice/Bain with 2023 skills. Listening to the guitar leads, one wonders why Niemann/Hallgren haven´t been mentioned yet as one of the best guitar duos in the World, and Anders Engberg could gracefully replace Tony Martin in Black Sabbath. At the same time all put their skills harmoniously into the service of another flawless collection of songs. We are talking here about the level of “Nightfall” and “Headless Cross” which means timeless world class!”). In the German Metal Hammer the album ended up on position 3 in the soundcheck and got another fabulous 6/7 review (“Further examples of excellent epic doom are the moving half-ballad ‘Eternal Sleep’, the polyphonic ‘Unveiling Blasphemy’ and the varied bouncer ‘Break Of Dawn’ (what a performance by Engberg). There are no serious missteps to report on this album – Sorcerer are back with full force!”).
Renown German magazine Rocks mentions in their 9/10 review that “Reign Of The Reaper is a metal manifesto in which epic doom and meaty heavy rock unite to form wide-screen compositions richly arranged in turns.”
Since their rebirth in 2010, through a string of amazing live performances, signing to Metal Blade Records and releasing three excellent metal albums, SORCERER have been firing on all cylinders with no plans of stopping for anyone.
’In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross‘ (2015) put everything into motion; with its classic epic doom metal approach it solidified SORCERER‘s triumphant return to the scene. The follow-up, 2017‘s ’The Crowning Of The Fire King‘, gave fans that extra dose of Epic they craved, while also allowing the band to begin to reform and reshape their sound and direction. It was here that SORCERER really laid the foundation on which they are still building – making heavy, melodic metal with crushing riffs, soaring vocals and hook-laden choruses.
2020 saw the band release what would be their most elaborate album to date, the concept album ’Lamenting Of The Innocent‘. This record allowed the band to test new waters with more elaborate, intricate songwriting, longer song forms and it features vocalist Anders Engberg at his absolute finest. The album was highly praised, and very well received, and has allowed the band to grace the stages of some of the most prestigious metal festivals and venues around the world.
For ’Reign Of The Reaper‘ the band holed up in their home studios and wrote music all through 2022 and then once again headed to SolnaSound Recording in Stockholm, the studio owned, run and operated by Simon Johansson (Wolf, Soilwork) with Mike Wead (King Diamond) assisting, to record the drums. SORCERER likes to work with a small, tried and trusted team so therefore they once again employed the services of Ronnie Björnström (engineering/mixing/ mastering) and Jani Stefanovic (cover art for the singles & artwork booklet/packaging design); these guys have been working with the band since the first album and as per usual they delivered superbly. The striking album cover artwork was created by Swedish artist Joakim Ericsson. Conny Welén as usual handled co-production duties. Anders says: “He has been working with us since 2015 and the reunion album In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross. Connys contribution to our sound is heard in every song; he is involved in the arrangements and plays all keyboards”. He also co-writes the vocal melodies and the foundations of some of the lyrics and on top of this he also recorded Anders‘ vocals in his studio. Photographer Marieke Verschuren provided the awesome band photos as she also did on the previous album.
’Reign Of The Reaper‘ is out now on Metal Blade Records and features eight brand new tracks guaranteed to appease the appetites of metal heads from all sides of the Heavy Metal spectrum.
