ALBUM REVIEW: Visions Of Collapse – Liminal Shroud
Although they may have only been active for just over six years, Canada’s LIMINAL SHROUD have quickly risen to become one of the most impressive and polished new acts to come out of the country in recent years – no small feat when you consider the calibre of acts and albums that the black metal scene has produced over the last decade. The band’s first two albums, 2020’s Through The False Narrows and 2022’s All Virtues Ablaze, laid some incredibly strong foundations for the Victoria-based trio, firmly defining their melody-driven yet harsh and engrossing sound and garnering them some well-deserved attention. Their third album, Visions Of Collapse, draws upon the band’s more atmospheric qualities to carry their sound, without having to sacrifice any of the caustic or inventive touches that makes them so appealing in the process.
Nocturnal Phosphorescence serves as a great, slow-burning start to this record, with delicate, clean guitar work and spartan drums gradually shifting towards an expansive, thunderous piece of atmospheric black metal that’s defined by polished hooks and precise rhythms and counterpointed by arid vocals. It possesses a tight and lean sound that veers into brief bursts of intensity, but remains firmly within a mid-paced template, with the imaginative riffs, along with wide-ranging, emotive vocals, doing a lot to make this an engrossing and effective opening gambit.
Nucleonic Blight sticks to a similar formula, with lighter guitars and whispery vocals creating a calmer feel early on, and utilising a sprawling runtime to incorporate as many ideas as possible. Driven by rumbling percussion and denser, hypnotic leads, it’s the vocals that, initially at least, are the central focus, carving though the mix with an acidic snarl and contrasting the slickness of the music. Differing from the previous track somewhat, which switched between tempos almost moment to moment, this gathers momentum almost imperceptibly until the harsher, more chaotic passages are in full swing, occasionally shifting to something measured when the cavernous undercurrent is meant to be emphasised, making for a huge, imposing sound that leans into an ethereal, post-black metal style at points without that being the dominant style.
Resolve takes the overriding melodicism and focused musicianship and injects a subtle dissonance into it, a small change that makes an evident difference to this track when compared with the muggier, punchier elements that underpinned the preceding two offerings. The jarring chords and angular leads alter the complexion of the album’s sound, with some of the more biting sections matching up with the bestial barks and authoritative gutturals brilliantly, resulting in a song that ends up being far darker than this album’s first half. Malaspina, a shorter, more belligerent song than the earlier three, suitably departs from several of this album’s key tropes, with clean vocals and energetic leads inverting the style of other songs, pushing the band into frenetic and cacophonous territory that makes this one of the liveliest songs on this album, and arguably its most aggressive.
The Carving Scythe carries forward this visceral, discordant edge and applies it to the monolithic form that is central to this album, and what this mixing of approaches achieves is magnificent, capturing the best, most grandiose sides of atmospheric black metal but peppering in some weighty hooks and performances which makes this already expansive sound feel much thicker and more bellicose. The intricacy and adventurous components quickly make this significantly more effective than the other three longer offerings, bridging the gap between the album’s two musical extremes and crafting one of its very best efforts to conclude the record in an incredibly strong and powerful way.
As an incredibly solid and lean slab of black metal, Visions Of Collapse is a great record that builds upon the many strengths of its predecessor. Although this is driven by the same kind of slick melodicism that not just this band, but the majority of Canada’s best modern black metal acts are well regarded for, there’s a noticeable focus on developing the underlying atmosphere of the band’s sound, making this album sound as cavernous as it is ambitious at various points, without falling into the trap of stripping away the hooks to accentuate this side of their music. Although each LIMINAL SHROUD release has a great power and offers an imaginative take on this kind of black metal, this is perhaps the band’s most accessible work to date, pushing their heady sound into far more immersive territories.
Rating: 8/10
Visions Of Collapse is out now via Willowtip Records.
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