ALBUM REVIEW: Return To The Void – Shape Of Despair

Finnish funeral doom stalwarts SHAPE OF DESPAIR return with their sixth studio album Return To The Void. Marking their first new material since 2015’s Monotony Fields, and signalling the return of drummer Samu Ruotsalainen, this is an album rooted in the past, both in terms of narrative and a return toward their original sound.

Brutally glacial and epically cinematic – two descriptors of a genre that has always found its strengths in drawing out every punishing note. It’s business as usual here as the title track rings out long and low. What do stand out though are the soaring secondary guitar lines, creating a grand atmosphere and leaving the listener feeling as if they’re floating through desolate, snowy forests. Just as you get used to the oddly serene sounds though, the thunderous vocals of Henri Koivula come blustering in. Guttural and cataclysmic, torrential and unyielding – every syllable comes cascading through the speakers like an avalanche.

It’s a theme that runs throughout Return To The Void, and Koivula delivers an incredible performance across these six tracks. But in stark contrast to that are Natalie Koskinen’s clean, ethereal vocals. They lend an incredible lightness to such a bleak, obsidian sound. A particular highlight comes on Forfeit, via a stripped back, sumptuously layered, almost-shamanic chant that truly elevates the track to a higher plane. It’s really a moment that will stop you in your tracks, and as much as this vocal style is in sharp juxtaposition to the rest of this record sonically, it’s a stunning accompaniment that takes SHAPE OF DESPAIR’s sound from hellish, brooding valleys to stunning, crystalline peaks.

This formula continues successfully throughout the whole album. Crunching, chunky riffs slough like molasses, Ruotsalainen’s drumming is stoic yet intensely urgent, and that swirling mix of vocals never ceases to amaze. But it reaches a point where, having heard this recipe for 30-40 minutes, you can’t help but wonder if we’re going to get something else. The most striking thing is that when clicking through the album, there are passages of the likes of Solitary Downfall, Reflection In Slow Time, and Dissolution that sound like the same song in different keys.

But this isn’t an album of passages. It is, ultimately, an album of gargantuan slabs of funeral doom, eked out over nine- to 11-minute increments. On the whole, every track is an exercise in musical storytelling: instrumentation swells and retreats back into the shadows, atmosphere mounts and dissipates in perfect measure, and there’s not a single wasted note across these 57 minutes.

Return To The Void is quintessential listening for fans of funeral doom. While there’s nothing ground breaking here, and nothing to really push the established realm of the genre further, it does take the established characteristics and deliver them to an impeccable standard. This was an album six years in the making, and SHAPE OF DESPAIR can rest assured that they were six years very well spent.

Rating: 8/10

Return To The Void is out now via Season Of Mist.

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