Review by Sonny for Desolate Shrine - Fires of the Dying World (2022)

Desolate Shrine are not a band I am at all familiar with, but instrumentalist L.L.'s other band, the death doom act Convocation I am very much acquainted with, last year's Ashes Coalesce being one of my favourites of 2021 and ultimately a vinyl purchase. L.L.'s Desolate Shrine are more of a death metal project than Convocation with only brief dalliances with death doom. Their sound is quite dense with a significant bottom end and a satisfying complexity that never strays into technical excess, but rather focusses more on interesting twists and turns within the songwriting. This feels to be more than just straight-up death metal, although I would hesitate to call it progressive, it does feel so occasionally with the incorporation and hints of other genres such as black metal, death doom and even, I venture to suggest, a bit of grind (during The Dying World).

Fires of the Dying World is also atmospherically accomplished with a darkly grim and forbidding face being presented to the listener which is occasionally leavened by short acoustic interjections. The albums longest track, the ten-minutes of The Silent God in particular, is an impressive exemplar of modern death metal songwriting and it's potential complexities. The subsequent track, Cast to Walk the Star of Sorrow, then attacks more brutally and with the synth backing of the track's first half even has hints of classic-era Emperor to add to the death metal pot.

I have seen a few comments that this doesn't do anything new and whilst that may strictly be true, it is far from a boring rehash of other, superior albums. I don't know sometimes what it takes to please people because this is extemely well-written, adeptly performed, fairly complex and brimming with atmosphere, so if that isn't good enough for you then I don't know what is! Consequently this will probably end up being one of those albums that is overlooked in favour of more hyped, inferior product which is a big shame because there is much to admire and enjoy here.

Oh and is it me, or is that Varg Vikernes on the album's cover being tormented by demons?