Album Review: Hooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration
Reviewed by Sam Jones
The announcement of an upcoming Hooded Menace record has become an event recently; every time these guys have a new album en route it’s cause for wild excitement given the stunning quality every release of theirs has possessed. Formed out of Helsinki, Finland, in 2007, Hooded Menace play death/doom however I’ve always appreciated how they don’t try and dominate your senses with their riffs and tone. With early records like Fulfill The Curse, Never Cross The Dead, Effigies Of Evil etc Hooded Menace quickly made a name for themselves as a consistently great band. But I’d argue they really came into their own after releasing their 2018 opus Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed, an extraordinary record that seriously put them amongst the big leagues of extreme metal. Then they go one step further with 2021’s The Tritonus Bell, one of my most adored records that year, that managed to convey a harrowing atmosphere without it becoming a burden upon the senses. Four years on already, Hooded Menace return with their seventh full length album titled Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration, lined up for an October 3rd release date, their third record released via Season Of Mist. I love Hooded Menace so I was more than ready for a new record. I delved head first, eager for what lay within.
It’s nice to experience death/doom that isn’t actively trying to bludgeon your senses at every opportunity; Hooded Menace therefore continue the path they underwent with The Tritonus Bell as they soften the production, lending their guitar work an application of clarity that allows us to follow its development with ease. But what this record shows very early on is the simplicity of songwriting Hooded Menace vie for herein; riffs are crystal clear but it’s not as if the band are playing with particularly sluggish tempo either. The band continue playing this steadier, sabbath-inspired trudging where their guitar work is seemingly aimed towards you, as opposed to merely existing in some undefined space waiting for us to listen.
One reason I highly respect Hooded Menace is because they’ve never recreated the same album twice. Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration is as unique to The Tritonus Bell as that record is to Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed. This time round the band are infusing their sound with strong Paradise Lost vibes akin to their Gothic or Icon eras. The classic Hooded Menace death/doom vibes are here in force as one feels the strength and impact they bear, yet constantly there is this secondary, loftier essence oozing throughout their performance. Like holding sermon among a thrall of spectres Hooded Menace evoke this ghostly yet not unkindly ambience. Their songwriting makes you feel you’re gazing upon the realm of the living as one already dead though your corporeal form had yet to remember its already passed. The band achieve this primarily with guitar work that cries with this ghastly pitch though, when needed, they bring the tone back down for more concentrated pummellings; such pummellings are accompanied by intense drumming or the delivery of macabre soloing not unlike the wailing of frenzied and bereft spirits.
I simply love the vocal delivery on record here. Perhaps championing those early Paradise Lost vibes the most, the vocals pierce the gothic miasma of their soundscape to deliver a performance that’s rooted in death/doom yet just enough twinge they blend seamlessly with the band’s stronger leaning, ectoplasmic, essence this time round. Whilst the delivery is great I’m happy that they don’t try and make it a constant thing, for the album is plentiful with instances where the vocals drop entirely away to let the instrumentation take point. Then again, the vocals lie within the mix on a higher plain so even as the band initiate their more beleaguering sections upon the audience, you’ll still feel the vocals strike you above the already morosely beautiful riff work.
Furthermore I find it dazzling how much material Hooded Menace have managed to squeeze into each song. Granted, the band excel with longer tracks as is becoming of death/doom where atmosphere is king, but I found it striking as to how numerous the memorable sequences all were. It’s a case where a single track might have four or five fantastic sections and most of the time these are all the integral, interlocking parts of a whole song; a single song on this record can have more ideas and material than some records in their entirety possess. In addition not a single track goes full, even begins to grow dull; Hooded Menace have struck upon magic with this record as you’re proffered these seven or nine minute tracks and you wish they were longer, firmly confident in their abilities to infuse them with a manifest sublimity.
Finally, the way Hooded Menace have ensured their instrumentation and vocals strike you head on without throwing it straight in your face is something to be commended. Take the drums, these are no tinny and distant powers but pushed right to the very precipice of your personal space so you’ll know they’re to be taken seriously, but there’s enough distance between you and it that you recognise the power laden within. The same can be said with the riffs, for the clarity rendered allows the guitar work to present itself without the mix needing to amplify the performance on record. Even the smaller, minute pieces where the riffs are barrelling down upon us have presence, and feel to have purpose as we understand they’re guiding us to the next pivotal sequence.
In conclusion, Hooded Menace cement themselves with this record as one of the best bands today performing death/doom. As aforementioned the band never recreate the same album twice, and with Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration they’ve created something evoking the earliest era of gothic death/doom; does this indicate the direction Hooded Menace are moving in now? Perhaps. Perhaps not. What Hooded Menace do next will always be up in the air, but we can be happy knowing this new record is a bonafide marvel. Death/doom predominately occupies the crushing, the disdainful territories of atmosphere but here Hooded Menace craft something that wouldn’t go amiss upon the reckoning of the Last Judgement, albeit with grit and headlong determination to meet the end as it comes. This is an album you can immediately reply the instant it’s done, knowing you’ll receive all over again those seven and nine minute opuses as the band respect every second you spend with them. I don’t know if I’ll experience another death/doom quite like this, in this manner, again this year, and it’s that reason why this is an Album Of The Year contender. Propping us before a communion of the dead, Hooded Menace bring to life the effulgent longings of spirits long past. What a record.
