Hooded Menace

This Finnish doom squad ply Cathedral-style doom better than anyone else, except the legends themselves. For their third album, and Relapse debut, the band take the blueprints they created on their first two records and lay down the doom metal law even more perfectly. "In the Dead We Dwell" evokes the same pure doom metal feeling Cathedral perfected early in their career, right around the time of their Soul Sacrifice EP. "Evoken Vulgarity" comes close to death metal, of the sludgy, slow variety, while "Summoned into Euphoric Madness" hints at the boogie doom Cathedral (and Cathedral-only) pulled-off so well. But it never quite gets there, simply suggesting it before creaking back into the antisocial crusting crawl of the drawn-out, sludge-ridden doom Hooded Menace do so well.