Released on October 3, 2025, Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration isn’t just another chapter in Hooded Menace’s death-doom journey — it’s a somber milestone, a towering monolith of gloom carved in sorrow and decay.
Where some bands stagnate in heaviness for heaviness’ sake, Hooded Menace continue to evolve — not by softening, but by refining. This is their most layered, cinematic, and emotionally nuanced album to date.
Rather than a reinvention, this record feels like a deliberate, mournful expansion of the blueprint. The band reaches deeper into melody, texture, and dynamic contrast — all without compromising the crushing dread that has defined their sound for nearly two decades.
A Grand Descent: Where Melody, Weight, and Dread Collide
From the first notes of the instrumental opener, “Twilight Passages”, Hooded Menace conjure atmosphere before they crush. It’s not just a curtain-raiser — it’s a signal: this will be a journey into something deeper and more immersive than before.
The full descent begins with “Pale Masquerade,” a massive slab of doom with ironclad riffs and sorrow-tinged leads that twist around the vocal filth like ivy over a crypt. The mid-tempo pacing allows the band to let every note resonate, while the melodic passages inject a strange beauty into the decay. This balance — between ruin and reverence — is one of the album’s core strengths.
What follows is a procession of death-doom epics that avoid the genre’s pitfalls. “Portrait Without a Face” delivers towering riffs and mournful solos that feel almost romantic in their sadness. “Daughters of Lingering Pain” stretches even further into cinematic territory — you can practically see the ruined chapel and the rain when the leads crest mid-song. These aren’t just songs — they’re dirges for crumbling monuments, soundtracks for the forgotten and the cursed.
Then there’s “Lugubrious Dance,” which plays with tempo more than expected — building tension, only to collapse it in true funeral fashion. The band explores restraint here; silence and space become as important as distortion and blast.
A surprise cover appears midway through the record — a slow, reimagined take on Duran Duran’s “Save a Prayer” — completely transformed. What was once a synth-laced ballad becomes a ghostly lament cloaked in reverb and sorrow. It’s bold, unexpected, and oddly fitting — and it shows how much confidence Hooded Menace now have in their sonic identity.
The album ends with “Into Haunted Oblivion,” a nearly 10-minute journey through the record’s emotional and sonic themes: sorrowful melody, tectonic riffing, and a sense of decay that is almost spiritual. It doesn’t resolve so much as dissolve — like fog swallowing the landscape.
The Band: Purposeful, Patient, Perfectly in Sync
Guitarist and founding member Lasse Pyykkö is the architect here — his riffs feel ancient and ceremonial, like something unearthed from stone. But it’s his sense of dynamics that makes this album feel vital: crushing power balanced with careful restraint, melody delivered without melodrama.
Harri Kuokkanen’s vocals remain guttural and sepulchral, but clearer and more expressive than ever. He doesn't just roar — he channels. There’s weariness in his delivery, like someone who's walked among tombs too long and carries their weight.
Drummer Pekka Koskelo anchors the whole album with drumming that knows exactly when to thunder and when to hold back. His restraint in the slower sections is just as impactful as the bursts of double-kick and tom fills that surge up like collapsing crypt walls.
And the addition of cello and ambient textures on select tracks adds a new emotional dimension. These elements are never overused or flashy — they haunt the edges of the songs, like spirits behind the curtains. It’s subtle, cinematic doom at its best.
Sound, Space, and the Power of Atmosphere
The production here is a perfect match for the material: dense and weighty, but never suffocating. There’s space in the mix — and that space matters. The guitars breathe, the reverb lingers, the melodies echo like voices in a tomb. This isn’t a wall of sound — it’s a vast stone hall of echoes and shadows.
This sense of place — of mood — is what elevates Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration from a solid doom album to something more enduring. It’s not just heavy. It’s haunting. And that distinction makes all the difference.
Final Verdict: 9 / 10
Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration is one of Hooded Menace’s strongest, most emotionally resonant albums. It keeps everything that made the band’s early work powerful — the crawl, the weight, the dread — but adds depth: melody, atmosphere, and patience. It’s a reminder that heaviness isn’t just in distortion or tempo. Heaviness is in memory, in sorrow, in decay. And this album delivers all three in spades.
For longtime fans, it will feel like the natural next step in a legacy of shadows. For newcomers, it’s a gripping introduction to one of death-doom’s most consistent and compelling voices.
Hooded Menace haven’t just built another death-doom record. They’ve carved a monument — one that weeps slowly, elegantly, and eternally in the dark.
