lista zespołów Death Metal Desolate Shrine The Sanctum of Human Darkness

Desolate Shrines’ second album is out there! So what? you might be tempted to say. Tenebrous Towers, released in 2011, did not really attract the masses. Even though Death Metal hailing from Finland has been increasingly in demand again recently, this particular band failed to garner attention. Much of it could be explained by the fact that this first record was released by Hammer of Hate records, a label whose fame is mostly based on Black Metal acts. I for myself can confess Desolate Shrine’s debut passed right under my radar.

Now signed under the banner of Dark Descent records, much more versed in Death Metal, deathsters from all over the world will no longer have a pretext to ignore this band. Though there should be some kind of prior warning here. The vast majority of Finnish bands playing OSDM have taken on the previously laid canvas of bands like Abhorrence, Demigod or early Amorphis and are expanding on it in a more or less successful fashion. Desolate Shrine took yet another approach with a la Incantation production and a delivery close to the most hermetic Black Metal bands.

Shrouded in the densest fog, The Sanctum of Human Darkness offers 7 tracks of atmospheric and yet brutal Death Metal. While some bands prefer efficiency, groove or technique, Desolate Shrine’s music builds rather on ambiances. Aided by the murky and – what would seem to most – an approximate production, the music asphyxiates, envelops and, if you’re into such bands, captivates. This is obviously a demanding record, one that asks its listeners for more than a distant and superficial listen. May I suggest you plug in your headphones? Because if you do, you will be able to grasp, after a few spins, the delicate intricacy of Desolate Shrine’s world. What may sound at first a simple wall of heavily distorted guitars may reveal hidden vicious melodies made to haunt. Guitar leads that sometimes pertain more to Heavy Metal than to regular Death Metal, riffing that scorches the soul as much as the most misanthrope Black Metal. This was probably no accident that Hammer of Hate signed them in the first place.

Still, even though the band is able to produce apocalyptically crushing and painful doomy parts, they sure know to blast your head when the urge becomes pressing. The Sanctum of Human Darkness is not just one-sided, it’s rather the expression of bipolar disorder gone morbid. The double vocal attack will also leave you panting with on one hand Lie in Ruins’ vocalist with his Autopsy-raped voice and on the other hand Sacrilegious Impalement’s shrieking torturer… Though none of these bands may qualify as good analogies to Desolate Shrine. Better look at the likes of Grave Miasma or a codeined version of Vasaeleth.

The 55 minutes of the album, provided you signed the pact with the devil that was required of you, will fly rather fast. Immersed in its malevolent fumes, its poison will certainly contaminate you the way it did contaminate me. In the meantime, I have just ordered their debut and expect to fall prey to it the way The Sanctum of Human Darkness consumed me.