HOODED MENACE - Darkness Drips Forth

November 18, 2015, 8 years ago

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Greg Pratt

Rating: 8.5

review black death hooded menace

HOODED MENACE - Darkness Drips Forth

This Finnish death/doom/sludge crew know what they're doing, the band here crafting 43 minutes (via four songs, of course) of some of the most antagonistic and heavy doom this side of Corrupted and Noothgrush. Comparisons are always made to Coffins, at least in my mind, but without the Celtic Frost worship; Hooded Menace manage to be even heavier than that (awesome) band. I love Hooded Menace but am hard pressed to compare this to previous releases, as whenever one of their albums ends I am totally decimated, unable to process and describe what just happened to me. But, unlike bands like Corrupted and Noothgrush, there is enough upbeat death metal in tunes like absurdly intense opener “Blood For The Burning Oath/Dungeons Of The Disembodied” to give the proceedings a lively feel as opposed to one of sheer oppression. 

Such is the glory of Hooded Menace, the band one of a few managing to craft death/doom that has teeth, and that brings the listener through the raw, unprocessed sludge with classy, almost melodic (almost, almost...) riffs that soar like classy death metal. And, really, here on their fourth album, that guitar work is as good as they've ever done it, the band's touch of class via riff coming through in “Elysium Of Dripping Death” and “Ashen Of Solemn Decay” (well, okay, all four of the songs, really), which hit classy and extra-hard, like Paradise Lost if all the members of that band were replaced by disgruntled ex-members of Grief.



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