Artist: Shroud Of Despondency
Title: Dark Meditations In Monastic Seclusion
Type: Album
Label: Unsigned
Well it has been some time since I last wrote a review for this website, exactly a month to be precise having thrown myself into my dissertation (yeah, yeah, student scum, blah) and frankly I seem to be having a problem getting back into it. This review should have been done ages ago but here I am setting a bad example to our writers instead. My head is a shroud of…well, disarray and focussing appears to be an insurmountable task. Ugh. Well it has to be said that having listened to this album a ton of times over the past two months, the very fact that I am not yet completely sick of it is a good sign and probably the best endorsement I can give an album so I might as well save myself the job of writing a verbose review and end things here.
But I shall carry on anyway. The album gently strums in with a despondent and incredibly mellow sounding acoustic guitar on ‘Looking Out, Seeing One Last Ray Of Light’ which sets a nice tone for the album in general sending subtle glimmers of light through the mix. As the vocals kick in, these sound equally dejected and are filled with emotion; I love the clean tone that comes across and there is a nasally Michael Stype vibe to them here. ‘Homo Homini Lupus’ instantly kicks the mellow vibes to the curb wasting no time in showing us that this isn’t all about wallowing in self-pity. There are some clean ‘whoahah’s here that have that kind of Winterfylleth regality, and are very fitting with the music. To begin with there is something about the drumming I don’t like, perhaps it is down to the production more than anything else however this is most forgivable as rather surprisingly it appears that Shroud Of Despondency are unsigned. Aside from a couple of minor production issues, this is a highly professional release both in execution and presentation, well, aside from my CD turning up cracked beyond repair!
Lupus has a real ferocity behind it and a prowling sense of intrepidation to the riffs. At times it slows down, kicking out some slick solos while the swaggering rhythms on tracks like this and the excellent ‘Sullen Murmur Oppressive Stillness’ really draw you in. The latter has some biting, cold riffs and a massive bass hook while the raw, callous yells really set things off nicely. This one particularly sounds very Shining-esque, especially when the mighty ‘ooh’s sneak craftily into the mix. ‘Parting Of The Way’ kind of breaks the album up with its speech about suicide and manic depression; it’s a cheerless and heavy-hearted moment as the old man speaks glumly over a downcast backdrop of acoustic guitar and haunting violins. ‘Sybil’ kind of carries this vibe along further, bringing things to a highly sombre and cerebral crux. Deep vocals and violins haunt the mix, which set an effective backdrop for the clean, nasally vocals to return. Overall this release comes highly recommended, it’s a solid and intriguing depressive black metal effort and I can’t understand why they are not signed!
http://www.myspace.com/shroudofdespondency
