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ERIC WAGNER
In The Lonely Light Of Mourning

Cruz Del Sur Music (2022)
Rating: 9.5/10

This album was always going to be a hard one to digest – the posthumous solo album from Eric Wagner, one of heavy metal’s gargantuan vocalists.

If you were born yesterday or think Electric Wizard is doom, then you need to build a time machine, get your head out your arse and listen to Trouble… a band that I still think may have naturally formed even without the influence of Black Sabbath.

Eric Wagner’s world-weary tones always drifted over me like autumnal bonfire smoke through drizzle, and this epitaph to the great man continues to chill the bones yet heighten the senses.

For 37 minutes I remained hypnotized by this record; eight tracks of genuine doom metal beginning with the sprinkles of ‘Rest In Piece’, a lumbering oath of a track with bubbling bass, punchy percussion and that typically engulfing grey cloud of morose rhythm.

“Free your mind, be still and listen,” Eric demands, but in those recognisably gravelled tones. Just one listen to this song and I’m convinced that these are some of Wagner’s finest lyrics. Reflective, brooding, moody, yet through the thick layers of sadness there’s a haunting beauty. More so as he sings “Don’t ever dream that it’s over,” before signing off with the stirring “I’m so tired and weary, tryin’ to fill that void. Oh lord I feel like goin’”. And then the heartbreaking “A breath of wind here at the end, we’ve come full circle my friend”.

The lyrics waft over you and through you to the point that the trudging music seems not to matter. And with only one track in, the tears are flowing as the lump fills the throat.

‘Maybe Tomorrow’ brings variances within the doom metal framework, hinting at the joys of Trouble’s Manic Frustration with its layers, and ‘Isolation’ rolls like sun-baked waves. Meanwhile, ‘If You Lost It All’ begins like a funeral march; black, mournful, sombre, Eric’s stark vocal against the backdrop of strings and drum is probably the doomiest thing you’ll ever hear – stripped bare and deeply reflective.

Elsewhere, ‘Stain Theory’ is a miasmic lonely trudge, and ‘Walk With Me To The Sun’ is mesmeric and psychedelic as Wagner’s great works always have been. The title track is funereal, ethereal and tragic, with the stony drum, the aching guitar, and the impending storm above.

Finally, closer ‘Wish You Well’ starts bluesy, yet it kicks into what is essentially the album’s most driven track, adopting a feisty gallop. It’s all so simple, without frills, but organic, heartfelt and wrought with heaviness and haunting beauty.

In The Lonely Light Of Mourning is a fitting end to an incredible career of an incredible man. We shall forever mourn, but his light shines on.

Neil Arnold

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