When it comes to black metal consisting of two members, it brings another dynamic and sound to the music making it detailed, polished and extremely accessible. Today, this band from Blacksburg, Virginia known as Death Shroud are an black metal band who’s been around since 2007 and have created the sophomore full-length titled Death, Slavery And The Pursuit Ov Sadness and is self released by the band. Coming to know little bit of information about this band, their style, compositional work and proficiencies in creating such esoteric, hatred and death themed of black metal seems to be in their favor as these musicians have not only made music that is meant to be misanthropic sounding but for their ability creating such blasphemous musicality and craftsmanship being incredibly tight and forefront, they’ve really outdone themselves both lyrically, musically and stylistically.
This album clocks in around 31 minutes in duration and have 7 tracks of unadulterated, contemporary and consistent arrangements of black metal but there’s also some death metal tinges in the mix that doesn’t overshadowed the magnificent music being displayed is something I have always appreciated the black metal genre when bands are able to experiment and expand different musical horizons to not show the listener that they’re not afraid to go leaps and bounds to try out new things and kept them under control. But far as the music is concerned, this album reminded me a lot of the first wave of the Norwegian black metal scene and little hints of the modern day era of the genre.
Whether it be the vocals bringing a Marduk inspired style, or the frosty, low-fi and cold atmosphere of earlier albums by Darkthrone or the commanding and fast paced instrumentals for bands such as Dark Funeral, Watain and Enthroned to a extent, Death Shroud are their own creation and while this album isn’t reinventing the wheel far as innovation and pushing the envelope is concerned, this record demonstrated that a two piece band are just as talented, phenomenal and full of originality. Songs like Dreams That Haunt the Mind, Pervasive Emptiness and the instrumental piece of Putrefactio showcases the band’s progression and growth as they’ve really outdone themselves to not only make the music commanding and introducing the wide variety of genres ranging from death metal and beyond, this record definitely gave Death Shroud a much more cohesive, technical and dissonant approach as I don’t see why any fans aren’t talking about this album because this is surely, but yet very impressive album front to back. If you love your black metal from the mid to late 90’s with a modernized sound then Death, Slavery And The Pursuit Ov Sadness should be for you.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
