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Every year, a few records come along that completely catch me off guard, and I totally fall in love with. One of those records in 2025 is The Convalescence Agonies by Weeping Sores, which is a regal, haunting slab of death doom that stands out in all the best ways. Weeping Sores is a duo made up of Doug Moore and Steven Schwegler, known for their work in bands like Pyrrhon and Seputus. Their debut False Confession dropped back in 2019, but what followed was a long silence, partially due to a serious shoulder injury Moore sustained during the recording of that album.

On that injury, Moore explained: “In late 2018 during the recording of the previous album, I severely injured my right shoulder. The wound disabled my arm to the point of uselessness, and left me completely unable to play guitar for nearly a year. After months of physical therapy, I began to regain the ability to perform, and decided that a new Weeping Sores album would offer fitting motivation for me to continue my rehabilitation.”

And now, six years later, we have The Convalescence Agonies, a strikingly unique take on the death doom genre. Instead of the typical cavernous, murky production, this record presents each element with precision and clarity. It’s less about overwhelming you with heaviness and more about letting the details of suffering unfold in full view. It’s almost like an agony is unfolding behind glass, a crystallized moment stretched over a 45-minute album. It’s a bold and thoughtful approach, and one that makes this album truly unforgettable.

“Arctic Summer” opens The Convalescence Agonies with a blast of grating feedback and a massive, lumbering riff that slowly gains momentum, only to collapse into silence with the strike of a single clean guitar chord. In that void, violin melody lines creep in, accompanied by subdued drums and tortured vocals that feel uncomfortably close—not close enough to touch, but not far enough that you can’t see the whites of their eyes. The track sways between quiet restraint and crushing heaviness before arriving at a gorgeously composed section right around the four-minute mark. It’s as if Weeping Sores momentarily steps out of their dissonant fog to deliver a somber, skeletal funeral march.

But that calm doesn’t last too long. After about 90 seconds, they explode into a full-force, blast-backed death metal assault, eventually circling back to the opening riff, this time layered with these eerie horror movie synths in the background for a very haunting finale to an incredible opener.

“Empty Vessel Hymn” feels like a direct extension of “Arctic Summer”, carrying forth that late-song death metal intensity but condensing it into a more urgent, sub-four-minute burst. It injects a creeping sense of urgency into the record — a reminder that while the opener leaned into slower, atmospheric misery, Weeping Sores is more than capable of delivering something far more violent and intense and certainly in your face.

“Sprawl in the City of Sorrow” builds on the foundation laid by the first two tracks, balancing weighty death metal with more spacious, atmospheric passages. But here Weeping Sores begins leaning further into atonality and unsettling melodic choices to really start to paint a much bigger picture. The guitar solo in this song — and closing section overall — take some pretty hefty liberties in terms of note choice, stretching the melodic palette of the album in ways that feel like the band is peeling back a wound to reveal something truly horrific underneath.

It’s also the first track to prominently feature more traditional metal shred on guitar, but it’s handled tastefully. It’s never flashy. It’s always in service of the song. It doesn’t feel like, you know, they just needed to fill some space and have a guitar solo here. This is composed much like the rest of the record is.

So why was “Sprawl in the City of Sorrow” the moment that I started falling in love with The Convalescence Agonies? It all comes down to the composition’s progression. Weeping Sores avoid stagnation without ever resorting to cheap tricks or jarring shifts or putting things in the songs that don’t feel like they should be in there. Instead, they evolve their sound with a very grim elegance. No sudden detours, no gimmicks. Every word of the proverbial story is vital—even if you’re not sure of what their intentions are just yet.

“Pleading for the Scythe” introduces yet another pair of textures to The Convalescence Agonies’ ever-growing palette. So first you’ve got a slow-burn funeral doom atmosphere right out of the gate, and then a surprising detour into this off-kilter prog metal territory anchored by a shimmering, almost celestial organ that threads the chaos together. That organ holds court as the track unravels into chugs grouped in threes, before returning once more right at the end — only to be swept up in a surge toward a cavernous, abyssal death metal finale.

And then there’s the gargantuan, 14-minute title track that brings The Convalescence Agonies to a harrowing close. It’s not long for the sake of being long or to close the album on an epic or anything like that. Weeping Sores uses every second of this song with perfect intention and obvious, crystal-clear clarity in their writing. The track serves as both a culmination and an evolution of Weeping Sores’ sound on this album as it weaves in threads of everything that came before it, while still introducing fresh textures.

There’s a sparse, haunting, clean section that cuts through the weight like a moment of fragile clarity right in the middle, only to be swallowed by a full-band outro that dissolves into the same eerie organ sound that’s echoed throughout the rest of the record. At the core of this song is this recurring chromatic theme that sounds like it’s something ripped straight out of Phantom of the Opera — but like, rotted and twisted and horrible. It’s theatrical, of course, but it’s definitely unsettling, and it grounds the entire epic in this sense of doomed elegance and intention. As a closer, it’s not just effective — it is absolutely essential to this record.

Like I said at the start of this review, The Convalescence Agonies feels less like an album and more like an academic study in suffering and agony unfolding behind glass. Once you press play, there’s no exit, no release, no false hope, no nothing. There’s no reprieve from the misery, only subtle shifts in texture. There’s these little micro-variations, like watching pus slowly bubble and congeal.

I am deeply impressed by what Weeping Sores has accomplished here. It’s recognizable enough to call it death doom, sure, but it’s nothing like I’ve ever heard in that space before. The integration of cello and banjo and subdued synths and these lightly atmospheric guitars don’t just add color—it reframes the entire record into something totally unique.

I’m sorry that Doug Moore had to endure what he had to endure to inspire this record, but what came out of the situation is truly great. The Convalescence Agonies is a clear nine out of ten for me. It is essential listening in 2025. It demands your full attention, and I really strongly suggest you grab a pair of headphones and really dive into this, because it is an immersive experience.

You owe it to yourself to carve out 45 uninterrupted minutes. Put on your best headphones and let this thing just drag you slowly and methodically through its glacial medical misery.