ALBUM REVIEW: All Virtues Ablaze – Liminal Shroud
Whistling across the mist-soaked coasts of Victoria, British Columbia, LIMINAL SHROUD aren’t exactly a summery band. A product of their environment – as indeed we all are – the Canadian trio’s take on black metal is predictably elemental and bracing, inspired heavily by the unforgiving seas which rage against the shores of their home city. It makes the timing of the release of their sophomore album All Virtues Ablaze a bit of an odd one. A swift follow-up to 2020’s Through The False Narrows (which received a far more apt November release), there’s definitely a bit of a disconnect between the brisk atmosphere of the music and the ever sweatier summers many of us find ourselves in at the moment. Move past that though and you’ll find a record that’s easy to get swept up in.
While essentially just a trio of guitars, drums and bass, LIMINAL SHROUD conjure an almighty sound on All Virtues Ablaze. It fits pretty neatly into that proud tradition of atmospheric black metal driven forward by the likes of WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM and PANOPTICON, while still largely managing to escape any accusations of being overly derivative. As one might expect, there also seems to have been a bit of a production tool-up in comparison to their debut, with the drums in particular hitting with just a touch more clarity and power, and the vocals sitting a little more comfortably in the overall wash of the mix.
Drawing on themes of hopelessness and despair, but also resolve and transformation, All Virtues Ablaze is often and predictably emotive. It has that real mournful quality that feels quite typical to these more atmospheric takes on black metal, particularly in the genuinely quite beautiful guitar lines played by Aidan Crossley on a track like Mists Along Florencia, for example. Like all four tracks on offer here, this one sprawls across a lengthy and expansive runtime. It makes for one of the album’s most evocative highlights, especially in its opening two and a half minutes in which rasped depictions of “tired footsteps” and “snow drifting down” line up perfectly with the music’s moving sense of melancholy.
If that is the highlight though, it’s only by a hair. Everything is solid here. Opener Hypoxic gets things off to a bracing start, its expected blast beats and washes of tremolo broken up by a few proggy turns and tempo shifts which at the very least keep listeners on their toes. Later, after Mists Along Florencia, the band round out the record with the two-part Transmigration (Pelagic Voids and The Cleansing Ash). Neither deviate hugely from the dynamic, melodic fury laid out in the first half of the record, but they do still offer enough to ensure their listeners remain fully invested. Perhaps most notable is both tracks’ inclusion of clean vocals – gloomy and gothy in the former, and more chant-like in the latter – which add a welcome extra layer to the band’s already potent onslaught.
Ultimately, there isn’t much on All Virtues Ablaze that should come as a huge shock to those familiar with the atmospheric black metal genre. This album delivers pretty much exactly as expected, but that isn’t a bad thing at all. Sticking to a much tighter runtime than its predecessor at only 40 minutes, this is a record that carries its listeners away just as all good black metal should. It’s often hypnotic in its power, and will probably only make even more sense as and when our days inevitably turn cold and grey once again.
Rating: 8/10
All Virtues Ablaze is set for release on August 5th via Willowtip Records.
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