ALBUM REVIEW - Hooded Menace - "Darkness Drips Forth"

By: Richard Maw

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 30/10/2015

Label: Relapse Records

Hooded Menace has delivered a powerful and dynamic record with plenty of doom, fully informed with the approach of death metal of a more Euro/Scandi approach. For me, there is nothing to dislike here and everything to enjoy. A fine and focused record.

“Darkness Drips Forth” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Blood For The Burning Oath/Dungeons of The Disembodied

2). Elysium of Dripping Death

3). Ashen with Solemn Decay

4). Beyond Deserted Flesh

The Review:

Death/Doom monsters Hooded Menace return to “Finnish” us all off with a brand new masterpiece! That is the most levity you will get from me when reviewing this album. To say that it is not a cheery listen would be a huge understatement.

This is slow. This is heavy. This is very, very dark. In fact, rarely has an album title summed up the contents held therein so accurately. Opener “Blood For The Burning Oath/Dungeons of The Disembodied” is packed full of ideas- leads, melodies, very dark riffing and deeper than the ocean vocals combine to make this eleven minute plus track just fly by (or at least crawl speedily).

I find the production to be a step up from 2012's “Effigies of Evil” and the band really deliver a tightly played opus, neatly shifting time feels and using dynamics to good effect. In fact, the heart of the record is as death as it is doom- in terms of approach and structures, certainly.

“Elysium of Dripping Death” continues the macabre journey with some very funereal sounding doom passages, mixed in with more familiar doom and melancholy. Generally speaking the tracks come in somewhere around the ten or eleven minute mark, so across four songs you get well over forty minutes of music. This is worth noting, as it means that the album does not outstay its welcome and the band is allowed to focus their ideas into the strongest possible showing over the course of the record. It is not all unremitting oppressive weight; there are moments, if not of levity, that at least lift the shroud a little and allow some lighter elements to enter the sound.

“Ashen with Solemn Decay” boasts an enormous and reverb heavy drum sound for the intro and then the guitars kick in with a rather Paradise Lost style lead/rhythm riff section before the doom gets going again. Again, there is rather more lead and melody than I expected on the album as a whole and that is a fine thing.

“Beyond Deserted Flesh” has some excellent chugging riffs and recalls a much slowed down version of peak Swe-Death. Indeed, the track is the best on the record for me. It could be that it takes a while to get into the overall sound and approach, but once you do you will be hooked- if death/doom is your thing.

Hooded Menace has delivered a powerful and dynamic record with plenty of doom, fully informed with the approach of death metal of a more Euro/Scandi approach. For me, there is nothing to dislike here and everything to enjoy. A fine and focused record. 

“Darkness Drips Forth” is available here

FFO: Asphyx, Coffins, Druid Lord, Autopsy

Band info: facebook | twitter | bandcamp

Coffins - ‘Craving The Internal Slumber’ (Album Review)

‘No frills necessary, just barbaric riffs and guttural growls’

Album Type: Mini-Album

Date Released: 21/08/2015

Label: Hammerheart Records

‘Craving The Internal Slumber’ CD//LP//DD  track listing:

1. Hatred Storm

2. Tyrant

3. Craving To Eternal Slumber

4. Stairway To Torment

5. An Obscure Pain

6. Decapitated Crawl

7. Hellbringer*

8. Under The Stench* (Alternate Version)

* vinyl bonustracks

Coffins is:

Uchino | Guitar/Vocal
Satoshi  | Drums
Tokita | Vocal

Review:

Coffins new album. Does exactly what it says on the tin...or album sleeve in this case.

Coffins are a very prolific band with this  EP being release number 34 (and 4th this calendar year!) amid a slew of compilations, live albums and splits with the likes of Noothgrush, XXX Maniac, Otesanek, Hooded Menace etc.  For fans of meat and potatoes death metal with the occasional doomy passage, you can't go wrong with this. Opening number 'Hatred Storm' goes straight for the jugular. No frills necessary, just barbaric riffs and guttural growls.

'Tyrant' starts with a mid tempo beat and vocalist Tokita (only a member since 2014) growls like a samurai Chris Reifert. Title track 'Craving To Eternal Slumber' is next and is reminiscent of their 'Mortification To Ruin' album released in 2005 in its slow, crawling riffage. The horrific screams towards the end make this an uncomfortable listen. Next is 'Stairway to Torment' which goes full on in its Autopsy/Obituary worship. There's even some blast beats and a spoken word passage! 'An Obscure Pain', the album's 5th track is back to the meat and potatoes. Uchino riffs away like a mad man and drummer Satoshi hammering away and changing the time signature to 3/4 to provide the album's only frills. Final track ‘Decapitated Crawl’ may remind fans of their earlier work....because it's a rerecording from 2007's spilt with The Arm And Sword Of A Bastard God. In all honesty it's difficult to differentiate between Uchino and Tokita but it's always been a great track nonetheless.

In 2008, it was hard a find a copy of career highlight 'Buried Death' that wasn't sticky with the ejaculate of the extreme music press.  Since then, Coffins have stuck to what they always have done; churning out release after release of neanderthalic Death Fucking Metal. Don't expect a game changer or a landmark because Coffins don't play that shit and that's why we love 'em!

Words by: Chris Bull

‘Craving The Internal Slumber’ will be available here from 21/08/2015

For more information:

Like: https://www.facebook.com/intothecoffin

Official: http://www.coffins.jp/

Follow: https://twitter.com/CoffinsJP

Listen: https://coffins.bandcamp.com/

Noothgrush / Coffins – Split 12" (Review)

Album Type : Split

Date Released : 25/11/2013

Label : Southern Lord

NOOTHGRUSH / COFFINS – SPLIT, album track listing :

1). Noothgrush – Humandemic 03:26

2). Noothgrush – Jundland Wastes 04:55

3). Noothgrush – Thoth 09:01

4). Coffins – Drown in Revelation 06:24

5). Coffins – The Wretched Path 05:23

Review :

This will probably be the last split of the year that I do (apart from my world famous Christmas with Van Damme impression), and even among the company it'll keep in a year of monumental split releases it's still pretty damn special. I reviewed the latest Coffins record from earlier this year, and I loved it so much that it landed on my top 25 for 2013. When you add Noothgrush into the fray you know it's gonna go off like some kind of doom cherry bomb in an unsuspecting toilet. It'll be loud, noisy and more than likely a filthy experience.

It does not fail to impress.

When it comes to the Noothgrush tracks on display here (3 of the total 5), theirs is a less death and doom hybrid affair when compared to Coffins. Obviously still sounds deranged and choking, but a more classic unit by comparison. So begins 'Humandemic', with full on Sabbath style mood. Of course it isn't long before those sick grooves start to roll forth from the speakers. This kind of sludged up repetition of a fine riff is real meat and potatoes stuff, born of disappointment, regret and late nights in holes with whisky soaked clothes. All the truly fulfilling stuff that life can provide. It's a heavy jam, raw and blurry around the edges, and I love it.

The Coffins tracks are filled with more of that truly vicious style that was inflicted upon my ears to full effect on 'The Fleshland'. Like a far chuggier Autopsy, they plough forward like a tank in a field of assorted skulls, and 'Drown In Revelation' wastes very little time in establishing it's dominance. Zero fucking about, even the intro oozes absolute menace. And then it rips into some of the most obnoxiously loud and heavy riffing ever. Those skins sound like the birthing of spiteful cosmic entities; entirely lacking any forgiveness or remorse, and huge in every aspect. They are the very definition of brutal, and in an age where that word gets bounced around an awful lot, please believe me when I tell you that I am most definitely not exaggerating here.

Their other cut and closer of all festivities is 'The Wretched Path'. If anything a more straightforward and I do hesitate to say this, possibly upbeat side of Coffins is dragged out for your consideration. Don't get me wrong, it's hardly Kumbaya around a campfire, but it does almost channel the spirit of 'Holy Mountain' era Sleep, at least to this listener. Of course after you apply generous amounts of gargled vocals and lashings of malice it is a Coffins track, but there is far more groove up for grabs than you would normally expect. And they accomplish it with gusto, bobbing along at a rocking pace, kicking out a hideous jam. It's a sexy sounding slice of doom-mongering, and I heartily approve.

This is another vital split acquisition for this year of 2013. It probably won't shock you to hear that this is being put out on Southern Lord either, who went a whole 12 months without letting me down at all. Two great bands, one great split, flawless victory. Get your filthy paws on this tremendous tag team of despair today, lest you regret it tomorrow.

Words by :  Matt Fitton

You can buy it here

For more information :

Label: Southern Lord
Noothgrush: Facebook | Twitter
Coffins: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp | Twitter