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Shroud of Despondency > Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion > Reviews
Shroud of Despondency - Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion

SHROUD OF DESPONDENCY: "Dark Meditations in..." - 70%

skaven, December 17th, 2011

Shroud of Despondency has already been around since the end of last century but has always remained obscure, and I’m hoping that will change when their second album Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion gets some proper promotion, because the band is definitely worth of the attention of all those into black metal with largely progressive or experimental tendencies.

Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion is one hell of a 57-minute ride through a plethora of influences I’m able to spot therein, from the acoustic folky beginning track ”Seeing One Last Ray of Light” and ”Flicker of the Ardent Light” that sound very close to Agalloch, to the fittingly named ”Sullen Murmur Oppressive Stillness” with its maniacal Shining influences. Not to forget all those Drudkh melodies on ”Sybil” with the ambience of Godspeed You! Black Emperor in the background... And what's best, the band sounds natural and plays without any technical gimmicks, despite the fact that these aren’t really simple songs, both compositionally and sound-wise.

The production is warm and it’s a pleasure to hear so detailed acoustic guitar sound, for instance. There’s only a few glitches I can mention of the album, like the clean vocal delivery of Michale Jurek that doesn’t always go so hand in hand with the beautiful music behind. Nothing to complain about the growls or screams, anyhow. Another thing that I could see slightly reducing the overall score of the album is the amount of influences it takes from other groups out there, perhaps lacking its own identity a little. But when it’s all performed so well, I don’t see this as a major problem.

Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion is definitely worth checking out if you like compromises in your black metal - if black metal is a fitting genre for this at all. Even if not THE most impressive album of the year so far, remembering e.g. Fen’s Epoch, this album is a clear example of a record that proudly stands above the masses of mediocrity.

3.5 / 5
[ http://www.vehementconjuration.com/ ]

Exploring the elimination of self - 73%

autothrall, February 12th, 2011

It's been nine years since Shroud of Despondency released their debut For Eternity Brings No Hope through the great Bindrune Recordings, but those years seem to have been spent productively, with the band evolving into an interesting sound that draws upon both variation and heavy use of atmosphere, slowly drawing the listener into a realm of suicidal tension and the bliss of abandoning all hope. The cover of Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion is an interesting choice; it's primacy beckons the listener into a cervix-like cavern of darkness, and I'd certainly claim that the album does as advertised, though a few of the elements here threaten to draw the listener out, briefly, from the experience.

For one, there are a number of vocal styles being used here, not all of which are created equal. I don't particularly care for the thin, clean vocals being used over the latter half of the acoustic/folk intro "Looking Out, Seeing One Last Ray of Light", or through "Sybil". They have a Celtic folk feel to them, but they don't feel fully formed, whereas the gravelly, aggressive tone assumed in "Homo Homini Lupus" is quite good, reminding me of the vocals Nocturno Culto has been spitting over the past few Darkthrone records, if a little more brutal. They also use simpler rasps and higher pitched background screams to great effect, evoking a multi-dimensional spike of emotional pain. The acoustic guitar sequences are also not that interesting, though they seem to work more when the band add atmosphere to the back through edge of perception chanting and tiny lead guitars ("Sybil").

Otherwise, this album is fairly well composed, with an earthen, natural tone to the guitars which benefits the variation in the riffing, from somber, sluggish beauty to a frigid, repressed onslaught of more traditional melodic black fare. In particular, I truly enjoyed the sample sequence used through the last 3 minutes of "Parting of the Way", in which a survivor of suicide talks about his experience over one of the better acoustic guitar segment on the album. It absorbed me completely, and I was not expecting this. The black metal tracks "Sullen Murmur Oppressive Stillness" and "To Glisten In All the Colors of Distress" are quite good, and there's one extended acoustic track ("Flicker of the Ardent Light") which avoids the less impressive clean vocals and instead throws in some piano to great effect.

Shroud of Despondency are one of the better bands at capturing that open Midwest space in their music, coupled with bleak human emotions. They're not as experimental or dark as Blood of the Black Owl, or as caustically hopeless as Celestiial, but I feel like they might really appeal to fans of the early Agalloch album Pale Folklore. Despite my mixed reaction to the vocals and clean guitars, I feel that there's an enormous potential within this band, some but not all of which has been brought to the table here. It's a thoughtful album, though not a perfect one, and if you're looking for a lucid examination of depression, it's engrossing enough to spend an hour exploring it's cornucopia of gloom.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Gripping - 80%

NovembersDirge, February 10th, 2011

Some say that the album is dead. And no, by this I don’t mean vinyl, because for all but the biggest audiophiles vinyl really is dead. I mean the album; a set of interconnected songs that form a whole, that induce you to sit and listen to them all and enjoy. Every truly monumental record is one of those kinds of records—one that should make you want to sit down and listen and just feel that swelling in the chest, or whatever you feel when you find something that really hits home. Few live up to this these days and I think there are several reasons for this—though, I’ll save those for another time. But Shroud of Despondency‘s Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion is one such record, a cohesive whole and a supremely honest offering which, for all its warts, is a tremendous piece of work.

Shroud of Despondency is the brainchild of the upper peninsula of Michigan’s finest Rory Heikkila, and it’s a project that has been solo for years now. While the Shroud discography contains a lot of demos and splits, Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion is the third full-length from the band and the first with a full lineup—from near this Angry Metal Guy’s old stomping grounds in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since the early material, Shroud has been about a combination of melodic black metal and acoustics in a way that I think is kind of similar to Wolves in the Throne Room and Agalloch, of course, to the acoustic approach of Empyrium, Ulver and Shining—that is to say beautiful (the former) and largely tracked and harmonized (the latter two).

It is this very atmosphere and the use of acoustic music that holds Dark Meditations in Monastic Seclusion together and makes it a cohesive whole. The record opens with an acoustic track, “Seeing One Last Ray of Light” and the tracks “Sybil” and “Flicker of the Ardent Light” very much work as glue to piece together the riffy, melodic heavy tracks and make them flow and fit together. What this does, in my opinion, is it also adds an emotional aspect to the record that one just does not find on a lot of death and black metal records. The use of alternative instrumentation as well, from the sound of it a cello, pianos, accordion, flute and some keyboards, in both the heavy parts and acoustic parts helps with the atmosphere—making this material moving, as well as showing off the eclectic tastes of the creators.

The rest of this album is what I would call melodic, depressive black metal. It is highly atmospheric, with sort of a foggy production and with vocals that are wrenching screams, reminiscent of Lifelover or Shining at times. The whole record has a very organic sound to it and while, for some, this might not be something they’re really into, this really appeals to me. That atmosphere, combined with the pure riffing genius that Shroud of Despondency is known for, makes the heavy tracks on here great. Normally I go through my favorite songs on an album and talk about what it is that makes them great, but there isn’t a song on here that I don’t think has at least one fantastic riff in it, and they all have great solos, fantastic guitar harmonies and memorable melodies. My favorite track on the whole record is probably “Parting of the Way,” and I think it showcases what the band does best.

All of that said, however, I need to warn you that there are some things that might hold people back from my levels of enthusiasm about this album. Firstly, I’ve heard more than one comment about the extreme vocals, and I admit that they’re unusual but I think they’re unique and after a couple of listens they grew on me. I, personally, had some pretty serious complaints about the clean vocals on here. Not only are they stylistically not exactly my thing, they are simply off in a few places. I’m sure I can’t be the only person who heard that and cringed. But that attitude towards the vocals, that is to say the “well, I sing flat, so be it,” is also part of what makes this material great. Depression, despair and isolation are horrible, ugly, imperfect things—and this record for all its imperfections also showcases exactly that and is successful for it. Give it your time and see if it grips you like it gripped me.

http://www.angrymetalguy.com