Album Review: Hooded Menace - Effigies Of Evil

Finland death doom troupe Hooded Menace have spent the last two years churning out a stream of split releases. Most of these have been undeniably choice, like the ear-splitting 2010 effort with Japan's Coffins, but all these split releases have invariably left fans wanting more – the two or three, sometimes even one, song that these extreme behemoths can cram onto one half of a 7” is never enough. That's why Effigies Of Evil is such a treat, because even though Hooded Menace seem to be constantly releasing splits, they're only up to full-length album number three after over a decade of playing together. A chunky, visceral embodiment of the Autopsy/Abscess-style gore'n'doom death metal, Effigies represents everything you knew that the two-piece could do with the longer running time of a full-length.

Bludgeoning straight off with the ten-plus-minute dirge opener, Vortex Macabre, the band are relentless across Effigies Of Evil. Drummer Pekka Koskelo is hanging back behind the beat, thrashing the skins hard and slow on numbers like In the Dead We Dwell, while guitarist/bassist/vocalist Lasse Pyykkö is similarly on point. Here he sounds like a kind of death/doom Frankenstein, comprised out of the parts of some of the genre's finest. His tormented howl is in the league of Autopsy's Chris Reifert, and his lead work on numbers like Curses Scribed In Gore sounds inspired by some of Gary Jenning's solos on the first few Cathedral records. There are a myriad more of these moments throughout Effigies..., and sitting down with the record, any fan of the genre will happily find them out for themselves.