ALBUM REVIEW: Deliverance From The Godless Void – Desolate Shrine

Once again, Finland continues to impress the world with its dynamic repertoire of metal bands with the latest offering from DESOLATE SHRINE. Embarking once again into the deepest and darkest of voids most foul, a swole and malevolent picture painted by their unrelenting onslaught of atmospheric death metal.

While this release may be less ambitious (in terms of song lengths that is) than their 2015 piece, The Heart of the Netherworld, Deliverance From The Godless Void places DESOLATE SHRINE atop a plethora of other atmospheric black/death metal bands that don’t deliver quite the same sonic punishment as these guys do. Unfortunately, what this album also does is site a comfort zone for the act which does lap them into a category of that which we have already heard before. To put it simply, this is by no means a bad album. In fact, far from it. It just gets a bit samey from time to time with no real risks being taken.

To begin foraying into what makes this album so underwhelming, one must look into the composition of the songs themselves. Whilst it wastes no time in thrashing into a blistering array of blast beats and tremolo picking, it uses this as its main weapon of choice which begins to blunt and dull with each track. The longest track on the album, Unmask the Face of False does break up the monotony with a sluggish stomping riff which ebbs and flows from roomy instrumentals to mid-paced double bass bashing, it only comes to settle back down again with different drum colourations. And that’s hoping you well and truly do have a lust for double bass. This does however lend itself more to the symphonic instrumentation which lingers in the background of each track, as well as the haunting guitar melodies soaked in reverb.

The production of this album leaves much to be desired as well. It is clear that a lot of emphasis has been placed on the digital saturation of the guitars on top of the HM2 that booms over nearly all of the orchestral synths which seem to desperately gasp for air. They provide most of the echo on the record, lending to the cataclysmic void picture, but also drown out many of the other intricacies which contribute to this effect. While the drums are ridden with a beautifully meaty amount of bass that does sit quite nicely in the mix, the rest of the components often war with each other, with the woofy guitars reigning supreme every time.

To conclude, while Deliverance From The Godless Void demonstrates a very tight-knit virtuosity in terms of performance, its often repetitive song composition and its overtly saturated production overrides many of the little additions as well as the vocals. A solid release, but a fairly bog standard one at that.

Rating: 6/10

Deliverance From The Godless Void is out now via Dark Descent Records.

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