Hooded Menace - "Never Cross the Dead" (Fin)

Doom/death can be one of life’s greatest pleasures. When done right, the music hits like none other. Slow, brooding and massive sounds, preferably accompanied by a set of monster riffs, make up the perfect formula for a completely crushing album. When done wrong, the listener is subjected to trainwreck ideas like “beauty and the beast” female/death vocal trade-offs, excessive keys, or endless droning. Fortunately, in 2010, the dreaded gothic doom trends have subsided quite a bit, and real doom/death seems to be coming back, and is certainly most welcomed by my speakers.

Hooded Menace are one of the more interesting projects to surface in recent years. The brainchild of veteran death metal musician Lasse Pyykkö (most notably of Phlegethon, but also involved with many other bands), the band was started off as a Candlemass cover band with death metal vocals. The band apparently had so much fun playing in this style that they decided to write their own songs in that vein, and released their first full length, “Fulfill the Curse” on Razorback records in 2008. “Fulfill the Curse” was a great album, and had all the right elements necessary for a great doom record. An absolutely massive guitar sound, catchy riffs, and good sense of melancholic melody without going overboard into mopey territory, all blended together perfectly to a modern classic of the genre. Perhaps almost as important for me, the band’s artwork, name and lyrical themes revolve around the Tombs of the Blind Dead films, four great Spanish horror movies that, at least the first two, have been long time favorites of mine.

“Never Cross the Dead” continues almost exactly where “Fulfill the Curse” left off. Despite the fact that the new album was released by Profound Lore Records, Billy from Razorback still has a sizeable hand in the band, and wrote a fair amount of the horror-themed lyrics. The presentation of the CD is in digipack format, which along with the picture disc, is probably my least favorite format for music. Aside from this minor quibble, the artwork and booklet look nice, and fit the music pretty well.

Musically, “Never Cross the Dead” carries on a lot of the same traditions from the previous album. The guitars have a massive sound, the vocals are deep and guttural, and the band plays at a slower tempo with an occasional break into a mid-paced rockfish riff. Aesthetic similarities aside, “Never Cross the Dead” is certainly not a retread of the last album. “Fulfill the Curse” was typically a straight forward album, with a lot of the emphasis placed on the riffs. “Never Cross the Dead” on the other hand, is much more compositionally rich and structurally dense. The band utilizes melody a lot more, and guitar parts weave in and out of each other in a rather complex fashion. The melodies and leads are not at all intrusive and work quite nicely with the slower tempos. This approach really highlights how well the band is capable of with working with one another, and it’s nice to see them developing more of their own sound instead of just releasing the same album twice.

On the whole, “Never Cross the Dead” is a very strong album. It isn’t completely flawless; the band is rather bold with their harmonizing and more intricate portions, not all of which work as well as they could, but generally produce a strong and thick sound that is appropriately heavy. Much like the previous album, the band concludes with a cover of a horror theme, this time its “Theme From Return of the Evil Dead”, the theme from the second Blind Dead film. It doesn’t work nearly as well as “Theme From Manhattan Baby”, but it’s a nice touch, and is a nice metaphor for the tone of the album. Much like “Return of the Evil Dead”, “Never Cross the Dead” on the whole isn’t quite as strong as the original, but actively sets out to differ from its predecessor.

Doom junkies will find a lot to enjoy on this album. Even though I personally feel it’s not quite as good as “Fulfill the Curse”, it’s still an excellent listen that has received constant rotation on my stereo. The band’s future potential is one of the more exciting selling points for me. Hooded Menace has really started to carve out their own path, and not only have they set themselves apart from other doom/death acts, but have transcended being just a side project of Phlegethon. Since this is their first effort that really starts to differentiate from the standard doom/death formula, some portions are bound to be awkward. However, as the band progresses and gets more accustomed to working within their own set of parameters as opposed to the genre’s conventions, I have no doubt that we will see more great albums come from this outfit.