The album title and, for those with a GCSE in Latin, the band title will give you the clues here. This is a renowned band in dark metal circles, having been plying its trade for almost 30 years. “How to Shroud Yourself with Night” is the band’s 13th full album release.
“Wall of Gloom” starts us off, and, well, captures the spirit of its title both lyrically and stylistically. The pace is funereal and doomy, but it’s far more than a doom song. Doom doesn’t tend to have ascending emotion for a start. “Wall of Gloom” is a strong song and nicely constructed with shows of instrumental expanse and vocal mystique. “A Cloak Woven of Stars” is more upbeat and has a vibrant melody. The delivery is decidedly “gothic”. Lacrimas Profundere manage to combine with this gothicness with both melody and dark passages. Heavy it is in style but it breezes along lightly – I like it. In vocal style, emotional outpouring and the majesty of style I am reminded the old and sadly now defunct Finnish band Charon. “Nebula” has great presence and hits heights through a good old-fashioned song which made me sit up and want to join in. The songs have variety. “A Lengthening Shadow” is of the bouncier variety. When listening to it, I couldn’t get Billy Idol out of my head, and this is who it sounded like to me. Without question, Lacrimas Profundere have a commercial edge about their music, and that’s fine with me. “The Curtain of White Silence” takes us into atmospheric territory. The angst that follows was what I was expecting, but again the band raise the bar with heightened emotion, matched by the majesty of the music behind. It’s got an emo touch about it, but the song won me over again with the power of its pleading chorus and overall expanse. If you want an album to indulge your preference in a certain style, this isn’t the album.
“Unseen” takes us into a different album, taking us in a metalcore direction but still majoring on dark, gothic melody. Whilst stylistically the album moves around, there is a certain structure to a Lacrimas Profundere song. First it is layered so you won’t get one simple style. The songs develop a broad range of sounds which usually heightens the emotional appeal, and the choruses are strong and distinct. Clearly the big picture is on the agenda when it comes to “The Vastness of Infinity”. Featuring that echoey gothic sound, the song itself has a progressive power feel but it’s not self-indulgent. The song has a clear direction, and deliberately dark as it is, it’s a driving force and something that sweeps us along. “The Vastness of Infinity” is at the obscurer end of an accessible range, and provides the foil for the faster melody of “To Disappear in You”. The riff, tempo and growled vocals are identical to one band: Mercenary. I’m not complaining because I like Mercenary but it’s almost as if the Danish prog thrashers took over the studio and slipped this song onto the album. “An Invisible Beginning” takes us back to the dark melodic gothic metal which I guess is the trademark of Lacrimas Profundere. In my world I’m hearing Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” here. Chorus-strong, it’s not complex but it all blends into a pleasant song and the vocalist promises many times to take us to the other side. Not so pleasant, thematically and stylistically at least, is “Shroud of Night”. But Lacrimas Profundere do not linger. The vocalist may be in agony, but we the listeners get taken to another place as the atmosphere develops and the clouds thicken before a progressive metal passage intervenes and we finish on the chorus which in true Lacrimas Profundere style sticks in our head. They’re good at that.
Here we have ten cracking songs. The themes are sombre and the music can be heavy but “How to Shroud Yourself with Night” is fresh, and never fusty. I was totally impressed with the quality and the layered structures of these songs, which are dark and commercial, and provide a recipe for enjoyable listening.
(9/10 Andrew Doherty)
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