After a long, soul-crushing four years of silence, Hooded Menace have finally returned from the shadows with their brand new album, Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration — and dude, let’s be real, it’s an absolute masterpiece. This isn’t just a comeback; it’s a full-blown, doom-soaked resurrection.
Are you pissed off at the world? Feeling like you’ve been cursed from birth? Good. That’s exactly the emotional sludge this album swims in. Hooded Menace have taken those raw, unfiltered feelings of existential dread, frustration, and quiet despair, and sculpted them into seven towering monuments of sonic torment. These aren’t just songs — they’re coping mechanisms in riff form, each one making the bleakness of human existence feel just a little more poetic… and a lot heavier.
Doom metal at its core, is just metal slowed to a crawl, drenched in downtuned strings and bathed in darkness — while death metal is pure chaos and rage, unrefined and unforgiving. Hooded Menace take both, smash them together like tectonic plates, and the result is a seismic wave of destruction and catharsis. If you don’t get it? Grab a pair of headphones, blast this album at full volume, close your eyes, and picture yourself in a hellish wasteland where the only way to escape is to face Satan himself — and his army of everything rotten and unholy. Oh and your weapon? A greatsword.
It honestly feels like Hooded Menace reached into the collective psyche of the human race, tore out every bit of hopelessness, fury, grief, and anxiety, boiled it all in a pot of apocalyptic imagery, and served it back to us as a piping hot feast of dread — garnished with bitter self-loathing, and a side of directionless rage. The kind of rage that surges through you when you stub your toe on a doorframe after having one of the worst days of your existence. Yeah, that kind.
Harri Kuokkanen — Vocals
Lasse Pyykkö — Guitar, Bass, Keyboards
Pekka Koskelo — Drums
This album is freakishly well-balanced. Harri Kuokkanen’s vocal delivery is unreal. There’s something about the way he growls — it’s not just the words he’s saying, it’s the emotion behind them. You don’t just hear it, you feel it. He has this unnerving ability to channel anguish, fury, and a touch of sorrow through sheer force of vocal will, and it cuts right through the mix like a demon’s howl echoing from the mouth of some long-forgotten crypt.
Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration isn’t just another doom-death record. It’s a goddamn sermon for the broken, the bitter, and the battle-weary. A perfect storm of melody, misery, and menace. The atmosphere of despair looms heavy on each word, it hangs in the air until it cannot, it’s heavy on the soul and genuinely brings tears to my eyes. To be factual; as I’m writing this, I’m listening to the album on repeat, the occasional tear appears. I’m telling you with all sincerity, this album will give you goosebumps. Give it a listen and tell us your thoughts!
Follow Hooded Menace:
Bandcamp: https://hoodedmenace.bandcamp.com/music
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hoodedmenaceofficial/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hoodedmenaceofficial/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/10mjw8SFRZjS0d8tecdEW8
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/artist/hooded-menace/364200709
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/artist/3748981
Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/artist/4754969
This has been fun, same time next week?
Jinx xx
15 years ago, my sister accidently cut a worm in half. I cried for hours on end. I still think about it.
