Sun of the Dying - A Throne of Ashes

Angry Metal Guy

Autumn is well and truly here, so it’s about time I reviewed some doom. Though my ears have been diverted towards certain listworthy death/black drops these past few weeks, the pull of the gloom grows stronger in proportion with the shortening of the days. But rather than the icy climes of Scandinavia, or wintry North America, or even rainy old England, my long-awaited dose of darkness came from Spain. In less than three-quarters of an hour, Madrid’s Sun of the Dying proved that you don’t need miserable, cold weather to make music about misery. A Throne of Ashes, the group’s third LP, is a bold, strong, and stirring mélange of death-doom styles that both filled the void in my musical life and made me downright embarrassed not to have listened to them before.

Sun of the Dying borrow from across the spectrum to craft their compositions, creating richly layered soundscapes. Gracing soaring melodies with dolorous piano, they channel Swallow the Sun on the highs, and Endonomos on the lows. Sweetly sad strings and soft singing recall My Dying Bride, and a duet over warm, vibrating chords and resonant atmosphere Draconian.¹ But all this familiarity detracts not one iota from the authenticity of A Throne of Ashes; if anything, it makes it easier to love. By combining the best aspects of these influences with a heavy dose of character, Sun of the Dying make them their own, constructing a powerful whole that simply oozes feeling and personality.

As an indicator of how well A Throne of Ashes communicates emotion by way of staggering death-doom, it contains not just one, but two Song-o-the-year list contenders. Contender one, opener “Martyrs,” had me sitting back in my chair completely still, to give it my full attention. Its graceful dynamism between uplifting guitars and hushed cymbal, narrated by Eduardo Guilló’s beautiful singing and untempered roars, is matched for pathos only by fellow highlight “House of Asterion.” The latter leans into the orchestral more heavily, accenting melancholy descents with ever more dramatic flourishes of strings in a way designed to stamp them into the listener’s heart. These two exemplify Sun of the Dying’s knack for creating depth of feeling and composition with careful weaving of delicacy and sturdiness— the mark of all great doom. As refrains pass between piano, synths, and guitar, they wax, wane, and build gracefully. Spacious resonance over which solo piano (“With Wings Aflame,” “Of Absence”) or strumming, or the sounds of someone sobbing (“Of Absence”) float over and bleed into, prefigures or breaks the gradual escalation into screaming strings (“The House of Asterion”), or white-hot tremolo (“Martyrs”), or the blows of shuddering riff and cymbal (“The Longest Winter,” “Of Absence”). The fullness of even the quieter moments, with bittersweet melodies detailed with touches of choir and orchestrals and multi-tracked vocals and the warm heartbeat of percussion, makes the experience powerfully immersive, heightening the climaxes and deepening the nadirs.

So strong is Sun of the Dying’s ability to draw its listener in and wring their heart out that one almost forgives their occasional structural missteps. Advance track “Black Birds Beneath Your Sky” is a crushing slab of comparatively aggressive doom-death whose string-swelling, group-sung chorus yet exemplifies most explicitly the anthemic feel that other songs hint at. It’s a good song—particularly in its more soaring second act—but it sits awkwardly between the mournful “Martyrs” and “With Wings Aflame,” suddenly brushing aside the rapturous mist of sadness only for it to descend again right after. Its mood-breaking grit is echoed, albeit faintly, by “The Greatest Winter,”‘s more grey and stolid riffing, and there’s the quiet sensation that the pair don’t quite belong with their more sombre companions. Without them, however, the album would be very short, and so rather than removing them, their use of dark and light, soft and heavy elements might simply need to be adjusted.

Even if its atmosphere isn’t perfectly sealed, A Throne of Ashes proves transportive and engrossing all the same. Heartfelt and compelling, it distils an ideal of modern doom and had me scrambling to hear Sun of the Dying’s back catalogue. Don’t let the year end without a walk on a grey day and A Throne of Ashes in your ears.

Rating: Very Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Label: AOP Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: November 21st, 2025

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