Hooded Menace - Effigies Of Evil

Doom death can be a tricky genre, I tend to find a love/hate relationship exists, but for me that is just when the gothic style is employed. Thankfully, this Finnish duo is not in this camp, they are totally at ease with the styles laid down by Old Paradise Lost and Old Cathedral. Being a dup I would have expected musical limitations, but the multi-talented Lasses Pyykkö, drummer Pekko Koskelo (with recent addition on guitars Teemu Hannonen – although not credited on this release) make up for whatever stereotypes I may have had. Opening with the 10-plus minute epic ‘Vortex Machine’, Hooded Menace tear the fabric of your eardrums apart. By engaging a marginal up tempo pace later in the track results in you as the listener being drawn into their world by way of a wakeup call from their hypnotic doom that actually reminds me of Mourning Beloveth and some aspects of the Candlemass sound of old.

It is fair to say that Hooded Menace don’t do soft albums and whilst I have not really paid much attention to them in the past, this latest effort has got its teeth in me. It is very nihilistic, it is a hammer fest of gargantuan proportions but the way it mixes the tempo changes ensures that even the most miserable of souls will enjoy pretty cool groovy glimmers of hope. ‘In the Dead We Dwell’ talks about vampires, this unearthly scene is backed up with unearthy trailing guitar notes with added demon like growls. ‘Evoken Vulgarity’ awakes a mighty beast, the track generates atmosphere and in terms of vulgarity, that’s easy to pinpoint…via heavy majestic guitar sweeps often presented with phase pedal effects, concluding that this album is well worth the wait.

I say worth the wait because after numerous split releases Hooded Menance’s doom death is untouchable in modern terms, their ghastly fruits are bearing rotten fruit and ‘Effigies of Evil’ personifies Hooded Menace as one of the most talented song writers within this genre. They have certainly gained my interest.