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Album → The Heart Of The Netherworld Artist → Desolate Shrine Year → 2014 Genre → Death Metal Label → Dark Descent Records Country→ Finland Format → 320K Source → What.cd 01. Intro (04:25) 02. Black Fires Of God (07:29) 03. Desolate Shrine (09:49) 04. Death (06:09) 05. We Dawn Anew (14:40) 06. Leviathan (06:25) 07. Heart Of The Netherworld (12:48) "There are few things creepier than the tinkling of wind chimes. Every good horror director knows that. At present, the only two creepier things that come to mind are little ghost girls and my uncle Rodney after heâ™s had too much to drink at Christmas. So when The Heart of the Netherworld simmered into life with the gentle clanging of wind chimes over an eerie dissonance, I had the feeling that this was going to be one of those albums that weeps atmospherics and unsettling chills. The Heart of the Netherworld is the third offering from Finnish three-piece Desolate Shrine, who consist of two vocalists and the multi-instrumentalist known only as L.L. Itâ™s a marriage of dark, bitter old school death metal and the kind of progressive songwriting thatâ™s native to twenty-first century death metal. As with all marriages, there are a few conflicts, and the old school sound is the object of continued nagging courtesy of the rather persistent structural progressiveness, but overall, Desolate Shrine have crafted themselves a grim, aggressive bastard of an album. Contributing to this recordâ™s bleak atmospherics are its sympathies towards black metal. These can be found in the blistering blast beats, such as the one that heralds first song proper, ‘Black Fires of Godâ™, or in the desperate, drawn out vocals that sound as if theyâ™ve been recorded in an over-sized mausoleum – check out ‘Desolate Shrineâ™ or ‘Deathâ™. It takes a while to get over the abundance of reverb on the vocals (which renders many of the lyrics incomprehensible), but once you learn to listen to them as an additional instrument as opposed to something distinct, they do a wonderful job of capturing a haunting malady, which plagues the album relentlessly. What keeps Desolate Shrine interesting is its attention to melody. The clean backing vocals on ‘Black Fires of Godâ™ are utterly chilling, while the piano on the seething ‘We Dawn Anewâ™ sounds like something straight out of a horror move, and these melodies continue through the song like a malignant undercurrent, occasionally surfacing in delicate, yet menacing interludes as the song ebbs and flows. Moments like these provide an unsettling respite from the onslaught of putrid aggression that characterises the album. Where I felt that The Heart of the Netherworld fell down was in its overambitious attempt at progressive songwriting, which just doesnâ™t sit with the bleak atmospherics. It doesnâ™t seem like there are quite enough ideas or diversity here to justify 15 minute compositions or a total running time of over an hour (considering there are only seven tracks, one of which is an intro), making it hard for these songs to retain the attention of the listener. Secondly, the presence of two vocalists seems like wasted potential as their styles arenâ™t remarkably different and they rarely interact with each other – although when they do it adds an extra density to the compositions – meaning that thereâ™s a missed opportunity to experiment with dynamics. Despite these afflictions which, it must be said, boil down to personal preference, The Heart of the Netherworld is a strong, emotive album capable of conjuring a surfeit of nasty images alongside the best of horror directors. Itâ™s best listened to as a continuous soundscape as opposed to a collection of individual songs and would make ideal background music for the plotting of your nemesisâ™ demise."  Genre: Death Subgenre: Death Bitrate: 320 k Size: 141.85 MB Show/Hide Files: 8 files 
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