Shroud of Despondency – Pine (2012)

It was just a few months ago that we reviewed the excellent “Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion”, and now we have Shroud of Despondency back with another epic release titled “Pine”. Covering 11 tracks and over 58 minutes of music, we are amazed by how fast this band can crank out self-released albums that are actually pretty good and worth to listen to.

With a very experimental edge to their sound, Shroud of Despondency mixes Black Metal with progressive and acoustic elements and creates a very aggressive sound that has excellent melodic and atmospheric passages. The first sample of these atmospheric elements is immediately found in the opener “Wander Lust (Winged Seed in the Breeze)”. Things get a bit more hectic and crazy with the deranged vocals of “Overshadow”, something we quite haven’t heard before.

The guitar experimentation on “New Trees” is very interesting indeed, and when paired with the tempo changes makes the song be extremely different to your average BM track. The atmospheric passages are back in “Wanderlust (Moist Soil)”, “Wanderlust (Seedling)”, and “Wanderlust (Lightning Precedes Fire)”, with a very nice neo-folk/classical sound to them. If you are more into Doom Metal, “The Great Sadness Descends” nicely combines elements of said genre with some BM stuff. The melancholic guitar riffs paired with the acoustic guitars made this song our favorite one in this release.

For full-on ‘different’ Black Metal, we have tracks like “Half Open Gates” and “Light Words, Dark Graves”. Both of these tracks are very brutal and yet, have plenty of technical nuisances that will have you listening to them over and over. Closing with the acoustic folk piece “The Unchained of an Animal”, will surely leave every listener puzzled and with a huge WTF face, especially after some of the brutal tracks featured in this release, but nobody can’t really completely discard that Shroud of Despondency would whip out something like this, and pull it off graciously.

“Pine” is indeed another excellent release from Shroud of Despondency. The band has mastered the science of crafting furious BM tracks and filling them with little nuisances that makes them unique. Only to then contrast those with lush atmospheric interludes that help develop the mood of the release. If you are looking for something truly original and different, but brutal and punishing at the same time, be sure to get “Pine”.

Release: January 31st, 2012

Country: USA