Loss / Hooded Menace - A View from the Rope

LOSS / HOODED MENACE - A View from the Rope (DOOMENTIA Records Split LP 2015)

Recently I went through a small marathon of Hooded Menace’s albums, splits or MLPs, and I have to say that "A View from the Rope" turned out to be one of my favourites. I really dig songs from both bands here and more so, it introduced me to Loss, whose "Depression's Hammer" is a real doom death metal masterpiece. I'm almost ashamed that I never gave this band a chance before and only know this one song, but I will catch up soon on their discography. I have to. But seriously, "Depression's Hammer" is a monster of a song, killer funeral doom death metal, with some really gigantic riffs and great, mournful atmosphere. I love that crushing, overwhelming heaviness, powerful sound of the riffs, insanely deep bestial growls... and diversity of this song, as there's also intriguing fragment, where everything calms down, becomes tranquilizing - before another killer doomy riff kicks in and grinds your skull. There's a bit of melody to it all as well, so really Loss came up with a perfect song for the genre and I played it a great number of times, never bored with it. Spectacular stuff.

Hooded Menace's "Monuments of Misery" is a classic song for this band, I can say. This split came out after their third opus "Effigies of Evil" (maybe my favourite album from HM?) and brilliant "Labyrinth of Carrion Breeze" MLP. "Monuments of Misery" simply follows the same line as these other recordings. It's a great blend of doom and death, sometimes their riffs have almost a 70's doom style, but then a brutal growl of Lasse comes in and he sounds absolutely insane. It all sounds like 666 times heavier and more ghastly version of such "Forest or Equilibrium" for instance - which is an album I used to like many years ago. Obviously Hooded Menace has that creepy horror background in their music, which I also like a lot. And taking all the ingredients for their music together, you won't say that they do anything spectacular or new. But somehow, I absolutely love them, that slow death doom sounds infectious here and powerful as hell. They never disappoint. 

Verdict: 85/100