Life is complicated. Reviewing albums can be complicated as well, especially if you’re torn between loving and just sort of liking an album. What’s even worse is when the band in question has been around forever and you’ve been a fan for a long time.

Such is my dilemma with Hooded Menace and their 7^th full-length Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration. While it’s not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, it doesn’t sound like Hooded Menace.

I went back to Fulfill the Curse and Never Cross the Dead (from 2008 and 2010 respectively). There was a grimier feeling to their music, the guitars sizzle like bacon on a griddle and the production just has more punch on the low end. I’m no producer but… It’s something I noticed.

Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration starts off with the suitably haunting “Twilight Passages” and quickly shifts gears to the Death Thrash of “Pale Masquerade,” and it’s a good song, raging when it feels like it and heavy, chugging bits when they’re called for. But it feels by the numbers in a way; but let me finish.

“Portrait Without a Face” and “Daughters of Lingering Pain” have a distinct 80s vibe, especially in the chorus bits where I picked up some Mercyful Fate and Iron Maiden harmonies that perked my ears up very quickly. I feel the need to reiterate that this is not a bad album! It’s… different. But it’s not horrible in an “I’m never listening to that shit again” sense if you get my meaning.

“Lugubrious Dance” is next, and again, this is a brutal track, and it solidifies the fact that Hooded Menace brings the riffs in dripping, bloody baskets. There’s more 80s vibes in this track as well, and they do a great job of switching tempos from deathly gloom to upbeat speed. It’s got a bit of a Candlemass feeling to it, but just the surface of Candlemass.

Hooded Menace is great with cover songs “Sorrows of the Moon” (Celtic Frost) from Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed is particularly notable, and like their contemporaries in VHS who famously covered Bryan Adam’s “Everything I Do (I do it for You)” and Limahl’s “Neverending Story” both from their album Quest for the Mighty Riff. Not to be outdone Hooded Menace pulls out a cover of one of my favorite Duran Duran songs, “Save a Prayer.” It’s a great cover, straight up my favorite track on this release. Don’t you judge me either.

Final track “Into Haunted Oblivion” is a quick thrasher, and it actually sounds like the guitar tone from their early albums, this buzz saw roar that’s satisfying as fuck. This is a crushing track and my second favorite track on Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration.

At the end of the day, this is a good Hooded Menace album. There was some controversy amongst the rest of the staff about it, and I decided that I was going to be fair with it. I’m already a fan, this album isn’t going to change it. So I recommend this for the fans. If you’re looking to “get into” Hooded Menace, go back and listen to Fulfill the Curse and work your way forward, but start with Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration, you’ll see what I mean. Pick this up now!

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