Entry 587 - Shroud of the Heretic - Unorthodox Equilibrium

 

Style: Atmospheric death metal, funeral doom

Primary Emotions/Themes: The crushing weight of the universe on you, extremes combined into one, tributes to the great bands of the past

Thoughts: This is one of those albums that I struggle to write about. I know what I like about it, and I know what I don't like about it. Writing that all down though has proven to be quite the challenge. 

There is a reason for this of course. That reason is because this album bears a strong resemblance to a classic that is in my collection. This other album that is used as a template ended up becoming the focus of the summary rather than Unorthodox Equilibrium. That is not what I want to happen.

I'm going to mention this once, and one time only. Unorthodox Equilibrium has an uncanny resemblance to Transcendence into the Peripheral at points. I have never heard another band try to tap into the sound that Disembowelment had on that album until now. It is not a clone album by any means, but it taps into that same energy and atmosphere that the classical album has. That right there is hard enough to do, and to do it as well as Shroud of the Heretic does... well it certainly got my attention.

Unorthodox Equilibrium is an absolutely crushing atmospheric death metal album. It combines elements of doom and funeral doom at key moments to drive the heaviness further home. The band has a way of distilling their sound down to the absolute minimum that is needed and having it do the absolute most with what they have. 

What do I mean by that? The band will play a single note and let it decay to the point where it starts to feed back just a little bit. This is then played over a blast beat... giving the song an eerie and rare sound. The band is playing at two extremes at once. The slow, almost funeral doom riff with the blast beat underneath is an exceptionally uncommon combination. It is done so well here that the music takes on a completely different character than most other death metal bands.

While this polarization of extremes is present in Unorthodox Equilibrium it is hardly the focus of the album. Most of it is played in a more cohesive style, and even then the band aims to absolutely decimate the listener. Be it old school death metal, death/doom, cavernous passages... they are all singularly focused to decimate the listener.

I didn't know much about Shroud of the Heretic before I picked this album up out of a bargain bin. This has been one of the best records I've found under ten bucks in quite some time. It hits a ton of death metal points that I enjoy, and it pays tribute to one of the greats. This one is staying in the collection for a long time.

Written October 30th 2023