HOODED MENACE – Labyrinth of Carrion Breeze

Finnish death/doom outfit Hooded Menace with Lasse Pykko are a personal favorite of mine in a genre where stagnation seems to be a problem with older bands new releases. Hooded Menace on the other hand manage to keep their dark, dragging and pure evil formula alive on new EP aptly named "Labyrinth of Carrion Breeze".

Two tracs of pure melodic grimness where tempo and blasbeats are for other bands to take care of. Hooded Menace focuses on crushing melodic riffing combined with a ultra deep growl that adds the finishing touch on the massive wall of sound (and sometime samples from various horror flicks).

Lasse is a superb vocalist and his deep dragging growls/grunts really sets the chilling atmosphere on Hooded Menace´s music.

Their catalogue contains three outstanding full-lengths where debut from 2008, "Fullfill the Curse" stands out as landmark in the death/doom genre.

2012´s "Effegies of Evil" was thankfully not the last nail in the coffin and this EP demonstrates that we have something horrible (in a very good way) to expect, hopefully allready later this year.

In the meantime "Labyrinth of Carrion Breeze" is enough to loose sleep over.