SHADES OF DEEP WATER – Death’s Threshold

The 2nd album from a one man funeral doom band, Juho "J.H." Huuskola, offers a monotone, one-dimensional and extremely austere doom that barely passes for metal while inspiring sound sleep more than the intended negativity.

Shades Of Deep Water is a project of one Juho "J.H." Huuskola who plays all the instruments and vocalizes the material. Death’s Threshold consists of 4 long. compositions which are all in the same vein, an amalgamate of My Dying Bride-ian melody and Depeche Mode-ic synthpop rhythms. For a funeral doom record, it has barely, if any, heavy metal guitar. These tracks have more in common with depressive gothic rock than doom. Sure, the melodies are good but there is never more than 2 per track (just 1 in the opening "Part 1" at over 11 minutes!) tracks dragging on for minutes on end with just one theme. Who can bear it besides the artist? Standouts are none but Part 1 is probably the worst offender and the one track where I sought metal in vein.

There is probably fanbase for such unremarkable, highly predictible and monotone music but I ain’t one of the fans. The only reason why this is not rated lower is because, musically, the material has some potential, potential which J.H. stretched for over 40 minutes for reasons only known to himself. Skip it like the first track on Type O’Negative’s excellent "October Rust".

https://shadesofdeepwater.bandcamp.com