Exhorder
Mourn The Southern Skies

Listening notes

Exhorder's *Mourn The Southern Skies*, released in 2019 on Nuclear Blast (catalog number NB 5070), marks a significant moment in the New Orleans band's catalog as their first studio album in over two decades. The record arrives cataloged under the genres of groove metal, thrash, and rock, reflecting the band's longstanding position within those intersecting traditions.

The vinyl edition spreads ten tracks across a double LP format, with sides A through D each carrying a portion of the album's runtime. Side A opens with "My Time" at 3:53, followed by "Asunder" at 4:57 and "Hallowed Sound" at 5:08. Side B continues with "Beware The Wolf" at 3:55, "Yesterday's Bones" at 7:04, and "All She Wrote" at 5:04. Side C presents "Rumination" at 4:34, "The Arms Of Man" at 5:49, and "Ripping Flesh" at 3:02. Side D is devoted entirely to the closing title track, "Mourn The Southern Skies," which runs 9:30 and stands as the album's longest composition by a considerable margin.

That structural decision — reserving a full side for a single nine-and-a-half-minute piece — gives the vinyl configuration a deliberate, considered shape. The title track's placement as the sole occupant of side D gives it a weight on the physical format that a digital or CD presentation would not naturally emphasize in the same way.

Across the ten tracks, total runtime extends well past the fifty-minute mark, which the double LP format accommodates without compression. The album's sequencing places the briefest track, "Ripping Flesh" at 3:02, immediately before that extended closer, creating a notable contrast in scale as the record draws toward its end.

This is an unreviewed draft. All factual claims should be verified before publication.