SHROUD OF THE HERETIC - Revelations in Alchemy

There's something to be said about an album on which the music doesn't sound wholly unfamiliar at all but manages to captivate and bedazzle all the same. When this is the case, which it rarely is, some serious music magic is happening. This rare feat was accomplished by Shroud Of The Heretic on Revelations in Alchemy.

A murky blend of death and doom metal is nothing new, but these guys do it in such ways and too such extremes that one wonders if this sub-genre can reach lower depths of cave-like darkness. In fact, Revelations in Alchemy sounds like said cave falling off a chasm cliff into never ending darkness, and frankly like that cave is still free-falling down and will remain so forever. Yes, I'm trying to paint a picture folks. But this is a fall in slow-mo, mind.

The seven track release starts out with an intro-like beginning to "The Arrival". A perfect song for a few reasons. A. The intro is not unnecessary. It's dark and foreboding soundscape and unholy distant choir sets the mood for what's to come. And boy oh boy, when it comes it hits you like a stream of lava and slime that slowly but surely suffocates everything in its path. B. The name of the song might as well have said, 'best album of the year has conceivably arrived', hence "The Arrival". C. It showcases a band that understands how a rather basic tremolo death metal riff of old can work when played at a crawly, ploddy pace in all it's lo-fi glory and how that echoes perfectly with Forest of Equilibrium era Cathedral doom.

From there on on, the band aces it in every song and at every turn. There's never too much or too little of anything, yet never same'ish. I keep getting this cavernous sensation throughout the album and feeling of sinking and it's fucking great. The sound isn't compressed nor steeped through any shitty computer plug ins. Or at least I can't hear it. It's as if the mics for the recording where placed 10 metres away from the band and the vocalist is singing in a forsaken mine. And not a fucking click-track in sight, which aids the album in achieving a organic, maggot-like effect.

This all sounds primal as fuck (that's the visceral quality of Revelations in Alchemy) and in dumber, cheaper hands the elements described above might equate to a ironic sum of a pop-up poser band (we have too many of those). Ironic throwback death metal is out of hand these days, but I digress. In Shroud Of The Heretic you'll find a band that knows how to write a song and they sound like they mean it. It's the true art of drum, bass and guitar death.

I cannot say enough good things about Revelations in Alchemy so I'll hand the mic over to Currents'/Andari's own Halifax Collect contributor... Let me add this though; if you don't at least give this album an uninterrupted spin or two, you are, in all likelihood, an idiot. [Blood Harvest]
- Birkir Fjalar

There has certainly been a rise lately in the abysmal metal ov death scene. In every corner of the world we stumble across towns full of musicians set on evoking abysmal forces.
Hailing from Portland, Oregon (USA), the home of skins, sins and diabolical donuts, The Shroud plays doomish death metal that sounds like it was recorded in the middle of the night, in an old cemetery, in a tomb, with only those that rest there as its audience. Imagine Demoncy's Joined in Darkness mixed with Incantation's Onward to Golgotha, plus Disembowelment's crushing debut...

If you like that mix chances are you will love The Shroud, although it's a bit rougher around the edges. We live in a world where many death metal albums suffer because of too much polish, where clarity has become an enemy. We live in a world where releases like these are needed to remind us that we aren‘t completely lost in the digital forest.
- Eyvindur Gauti