Shape of Despair

Counting Hours – The Wishing Tomb Review

By Steel Druhm on February 20, 2024 in Reviews, Death Metal, Doom Metal, 72 comments

“Tears freezing in the cutting winter winds. Life’s blood staining the freshly fallen snow. These are the things that bring Steel to the graveyard. Naturally, I love my sadboi doom as well, and the long-defunct Finnish act Rapture in particular. Their style of highly melancholic melodoom resonated deeply in my cold dead chest cavity, and though they’ve been gone since 2005 I still go back to those albums regularly. When the two guitarists of Rapture reunited to form Counting Hours and dropped the excellent debut The Will back in 2019, I was ecstatic. It was as close to getting new Rapture material as we were ever going to get and they hit all the same grim feelz as they fused the early days of Katatonia with Dawn of Solace into a cold grave of an album. Now a few years later we get the eagerly anticipated follow-up.” Counting hours and tears.

The Abbey – Word of Sin Review

By Maddog on February 20, 2023 in Reviews, Doom Metal, 26 comments

“The Abbey of Thelema was a commune in Sicily run by Aleister Crowley. Home to the wild hedonism and magick of his cult, the Abbey met its unceremonious end in 1923, when Crowley’s shenanigans convinced Mussolini to boot him out of Italy. Finnish psychedelic doom outfit The Abbey aims to carry on the Abbey’s legacy. ,b>The Abbey’s debut Word of Sin draws inspiration from occult organizations and their mystical practices.” Nuns DO have fun.

Angmodnes – The Weight of Eternity Review

By Cherd on October 8, 2022 in Reviews, Death Doom, Doom Metal, Funeral Doom, 35 comments

“As one of the primary reviewers of doom metal ’round these parts, I find it challenging to continue finding different ways to say “this music is unhappy.” I can only use adjectives like mournful, miserable, wretched or despondent so many times before I’m tired of typing them and you’re tired of reading them. Before me is the prospect of reviewing not just doom, but death doom, and not just death doom, but funeral doom in the form of The Weight of Eternity by Dutch act Angmodnes, and friends, I just don’t have it in me to google more synonyms for “sad.” For this post I propose a change. In the pursuit of more robust ways to say “unhappy,” I’ll employ metaphor.” Weighing the feelz.

Soul Dissolution – Sora Review

By Twelve on October 6, 2022 in Reviews, Black Metal, Post-Metal, 14 comments

“Post-metal and black metal are both styles of music I can enjoy mainly under the right circumstances. There are so many interesting ways to apply each one, but combining them together, I feel, has the greatest potential. The Agallochs of the world hold special places in my heart, and this is a big part of what initially attracted me to Belgium’s Soul Dissolution.” Post runners.

Depressed Mode – Decade of Silence Review

By Doom_et_Al on May 4, 2022 in Reviews, Doom Metal, Symphonic Metal, 27 comments

“When I first saw the name, “Depressed Mode,” I assumed it was an homage to synth-rock icons, Depeche Mode. Nope. Turns out, these Fins are being literal. That’s their thing. Even their album names are literal. Decade of Silence is the third album after 2009’s For Death and follows a decade(ish) of… er… silence. Depressed Mode plays symphonic doom in the vein of… well… it’s complicated.” Silence is deadening.

Freja – Tides Review

By Twelve on April 25, 2022 in Reviews, Black Metal, Death Doom, 9 comments

“I’m a simple creature, really. If you make your album even vaguely Nordic-themed, I’ll pay attention. The mythologies that have spawned countless legends, a whole lot of music, and many other artistic expressions are so enduringly popular for a reason, and their themes have similarly lent themselves to some really good metal. Freja is among the newest bands to find influence in this striking topic, a Dutch duo of one C. and W., who describe their style as one of “towering, thundering” atmospheric black metal.” The tides are a raider.

Shape of Despair – Return to the Void Review

By Steel Druhm on February 25, 2022 in Reviews, Death Metal, Funeral Doom, 30 comments

Shape of Despair is such a big name in the funeral doom scene that we had to give their latest depressive platter a double review. Come for the reviews of Return to the Void, but stay for the despair.

Clouds – Despărțire Review

By Thus Spoke on December 8, 2021 in Reviews, Death Doom, Funeral Doom, 65 comments

“You could hardly find a more autumnally appropriate band than Clouds. Their name not only describes the most prevalent meteorological phenomenon of the season, their past catalog, and a band roster filled with members from legendary Funeral, Saturnus, and Shape of Despair has established them as a master of atmospheric doom.” Sure, it’s winter. And yes, this record dropped in October. Did you miss it?

Counting Hours – The Will [Things You Might Have Missed 2020]

By Steel Druhm on December 11, 2020 in Things You Might Have Missed 2020, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Melodic Death Metal, 45 comments

“Longtime members of the AMG metal intelligentsia are likely aware I enjoy me some melancholy melodeath and downbeat mope-core. Said intelligentsia may also have noticed I tend to namedrop long-defunct Finnish melodeath act Rapture rather frequently. That’s because I really loved their sound and truly miss them since they called it a day after releasing the excellently bleak Silent Stage way back in 2005. Over the years various bands helped fill the hole left in my wretched soul, but no one could truly replace Rapture. Finland’s Counting Hours may have come as close as inhumanly possibly though with their debut The Will.” Inherit the sadness.

Rise to the Sky – Death Will Not Keep Us Apart

By Twelve on October 6, 2020 in Reviews, Doom Metal, 13 comments

“It was a warm day in June when I first came across the Chilean one-man doom project that is Rise to the Sky. In the Grave of a Forgotten Soul piqued my interest enough that when I learned that they’d been signed to GS Productions and had a full-length coming out later this year, I immediately set up a fiendish trap in the Promo Pit to ensure that I would be the only one to reach that record alive. At last, here it is.” Rise to die.