Hooded Menace

Cadaver Shrine – Benighted Desecration Review

Cadaver Shrine – Benighted Desecration Review

“Sunlight can cleanse or heal, but it also burns. The scouring properties of light sear their way into the foreground on Benighted Desecration, the debut full-length from death-doom entity Cadaver Shrine. Just look at the corpse on the album cover, face pointed upward toward the source of its demise. A halo of oppressive brightness envelops the nasty music on this latest of many side projects from Maurice de Jong of Gnaw Their Tongues infamy.” Cult of the Sun.

Druid Lord – Relics of the Dead Review

Druid Lord – Relics of the Dead Review

“Some 12 years after coalescing around ex members of Acheron, Orlando, Florida’s Druid Lord is back with just their third full-length. A hefty eight years passed between debut, Hymns for the Wicked, and its 2018 follow-up, Grotesque Offerings, on which the death-doom quartet “came up short,” according to our own Grymm.” Speaking ill of the dead.

WORM – Foreverglade Review

WORM – Foreverglade Review

“Over a year and a half ago, Floridian band WORM released Gloomlord, a funeral/death doom album that marked a left turn for the former black metal outfit. I found it below average. Remarkably, my proclamation of its deficiencies wasn’t enough to keep others from enjoying it. The absolute fucking nerve. An inordinate number of other metal polymaths in the blogosphere sang its dolorous praises to the point that I wondered if maybe I had been mistaken, as rare an occurrence as that may be. When follow-up Foreverglade was announced, I decided to revisit Gloomlord, and I found it…about the same. Two good tracks and three duds. As I hit play on Foreverglade, I mentally prepared to be the bearer of bad reviews a second time.” The WORM has turned.

Wharflurch – Psychedelic Realms ov Hell Review

Wharflurch – Psychedelic Realms ov Hell Review

“I had Florida-based doom/death/mushroom farmers Wharflurch in my sights for a review last week, but life dragged me off to the salt mines to toil for actual pay. This had the unintended consequence of giving me more time to absorb the weird dish Wharflurch served up on full-length debut Psychedelic Realms ov Hell, and more time was definitely needed. This is a strange act delivering unusual music that runs across several clearly labeled genre boundaries like an outlaw on the run from the normality police.” Wharf arts!!

Hooded Menace – The Tritonus Bell Review

Hooded Menace – The Tritonus Bell Review

“Finland’s Hooded Menace are lords of death-doom. Their back-catalog is a veritable boneyard of fatal furors that crawl at a corpse pace and exist on the edge of an undead pulse. Indeed, their last album, Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed, made a grave impression on many an end-of-year list, mine included. Now, sixth album The Tritonus Bell prepares to resound, and one thing is certain; Hooded Menace are masters of their craft. But this record’s new stylistic choice excludes heft in favor of history and the implication is almost unrecognizable.” Bells to the wall.

Horrisonous – A Culinary Cacophony Review

Horrisonous – A Culinary Cacophony Review

“Eating is metal. We survive by threshing matter to an unrecognizable paste, forcing it down a lightless cavern and then, in the darkness, boiling it in acid. The act of feeding ourselves encapsulates the blend of violence, intensity and profundity we reach at when we use ‘metal’ as an adjective. Horrisonous drive this point liver-deep with their debut full length, A Culinary Cacophony. Its members have been slinging death around the Sydney scene in bands such as Temple Nightside, Backyard Mortuary, and Illimitable Dolor, and they’ve put their overstuffed CVs to work chopping, searing, and seasoning a viscous trough of old school death metal.” It’s a gutter buffet.