Early Moods – A Sinner’s Past

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · January 14, 2025

Early Moods is a doom/ proto-metal band from Los Angeles, California. The band formed in 2015 and have currently released an EP-2020’s Spellbound, a full length debut, 2022’s Self Titled, and their latest sophomore album, 2024’s A Sinner’s Past. The quintet features Eddie Andrade on guitar, Elix Feliciano on bass, Alberto Alcaraz on vocals, Chris Flores on drums, and Oscar Hernandez on guitar. A Sinner’s Past was released on March 8th 2024 and is available on RidingEasy Records.

“Last Hour” starts the album off with a nice heavy doom rock riff. The music has a vintage Pentagram feel to it with excellent old school heavy metal vibes also. Alberto Alcaraz has a similar Bobby Leibling tone to his voice which gives the songs that vintage feel throughout the record. “Last Hour” has a straight forward rhythmic gallop that flows into a chord accented riff. When the guitar solos kick in, the song ascends into an old Iron Maiden style riffing with great bombastic drumming too. “Blood Offerings” chugs a nice heavy riff that proceeds into the proto-metal course. The band are fluent in guitar harmonies as well, which plays well throughout the whole album. Early Moods are very tight in their performance on A Sinner’s Past. The title track is heavy and elegant with doom and melody alike. The band are believers in the less is more approach. They never over play their parts and keep the songs firmly planted with precision and integrity.

“Walpurgis” has that sinister riffing of Bedemon and a Sabbath swagger to it that you would swear could have been written over fifty years ago. I hear some Candlemass within some of these tracks also. “The Apparation” has a slow and sludgy doom riff that trudges the song in a lumbering but tight composition of heavy rock. Most of the songs clock in around five to six minutes in length which gives Early Moods the time to build up and execute the music with a great blend of heavy and harmonic elements.

“Unhinged Spirit” begins with a mellow and clean guitar intro that leads into a distorted guitar riff and a traditional doom drive. Early Moods are clever about utilizing sounds of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal into their songs which gives the music a lot of depth and charisma. “Hell’s Odyssey” is the longest cut on the album at eight and a half minutes long. The song blends all of the essential Early Moods elements together on this one. It has the heavy doom laced with the traditional metal and spot on playing from the whole band. Around four and a half minutes into the song, it bridges off into some nice melodic riffing and searing guitar leads courtesy of Eddie Andrade and Oscar Hernandez. It then rolls into the NWOBHM sounds I mentioned earlier and features nice guitar harmonies and drum fills also.

The final track on A Sinner’s Past is called “Soul Sorcery”. It’s another banger of a song that has a flavor of old Trouble, which is very cool. Overall, Early Moods craft some very fine doom metal in that classic era of execution that most bands can’t capture just right. The band has figured out how to celebrate the older style proto-metal sound and pump some new life into it. A Sinner’s Past is an excellent album for fans of that genre, who are also looking for something a bit more dynamic and interesting within the realms of doom.