Shape of Despair [Import]

Shape of Despair [Import]

Track Listings

1. Sleeping Murder

2. Night's Dew

3. Sylvan-Night

4. Quiet These Paintings Are (Outro)

5. Woundheir

6. To Adorn

7. In The Mist

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
This album opens with a brand new song showcasing the band in the zenith of their career. This is funeral doom the way it is meant to be, but Shape Of Dispair manage to make it sound almost catchy at the same time, no mean feat! From the bright, blood-red doomsday sun glow of the said song, 'Sleeping Murder', it is time to preceed deep down to the vale of shadows. And shadows, they sure are plentiful here. Whether it is the rehearsal track from ten years ago (time flies swiftly on black wings!) or the promo tracks dating from 1998, the deternimation and aim of the band shines through clear as ice. 7 tracks. Spikefarm Records. 2005.

Tracks:

Fallen
Angels of Distress
Quiet These Paintings Are
...To Live for My Death...
Night's Dew

Album Description

Shape Of Despair includes: Pasi Koskinen, N.S., P.K. (vocals); J.S. (guitar, synthesizer); T.U. (guitar, bass). Additional personnel: Toni Rachalme (violin). Engineers: Kaide Hinkkala, Antti Lindell, J.S Sophomore album for female fronted act from Finland. Beautiful synth based slow sound. 5 tracks in all. Digipak. Spinefarm Records.

Customer Reviews:

Your tears on your cheeks are like snowflakes on my tongue........2006-02-08

Amazing. This album just oozes beauty like a sponge when squeezed. It makes darkness and despair beautiful with slow dragging guitars backed by synth pieces that make each song very epic and dramatic. Production is a bit clearer on this album as opposed to Shades of... and I usually like lo-fi production, but it still fits this album and making each beautiful chord and note clear and sharp on your ears. A must have for any true fan of melancholic funeral doom metal.

great album but...........2005-02-02

this band is not female fronted... they do have lovely female backgrounds, though .. a must have for fans of slow crushing doom, with majestic symphonics...all sonfs are great but the first 3 are the best by far

Average customer rating:

Doom-dy-doom-doom!
a GEM if you like depressive tones

Shades of...
Shape of Despair
Manufacturer: Spinefarm
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Illusion's Play
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ASIN: B00004TEX2
Release Date: 2006-04-04

Tracks:

In The Mist
Woundheir
Shadowed Dreams
Down Into The Stream
Sylvan-Night

Album Description

Shape Of Despair, one of the few bands that unfolds in front of the very eyes of the listener the true faces of despair, parading one by one in front of his fearful eyes. Shades Of is the first part of their bleeding legacy and despite the fact it is a debut album, it is a real masterpiece filling your hollow hours with moments of grief and pure bitterness with its lengthy compositions.

Customer Reviews:

Doom-dy-doom-doom!.......2006-12-04

Description: cross My Dying Bride with Lycia. Shake hard. The lovely, slightly low-fi slab landing on your doorstep is this lovely album. Add elements of shoegaze, and a hint of flute right out of early Genesis, and a bit of monotone drone from a David Lynch soundtrack, plus some lovely female pseudo-choral music... you've got me.

Repetitive? Somewhat. The key with this, as with Lycia, is to set you down in a dark and moody groove, and expand on the theme. Synth wash and orchestrations only add tension and sheen to the proceedings. Not a perfect album, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it right now.

a GEM if you like depressive tones.......2004-04-18

don't listen when your beloved left you, you may really want to die!

Average customer rating:

GOD THIS IS WEIRD
Depressing the way i like.
This is a real disappointment
Dear Shape of Despair,
funeral music...

Angels of Distress
Shape of Despair
Manufacturer: Relapse
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Binding: Audio CD

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Quietus
Sombre Romantic
Stormcrowfleet

ASIN: B00005UF22
Release Date: 2002-01-22

Tracks:

Fallen
Angels Of Distress
Quiet These Paintings Are
...To Live For My Death...
Night's Dew

Customer Reviews:

GOD THIS IS WEIRD.......2005-03-03

Hmmm...simple, simple guitar work. All of the songs sound inspired and very doomy and gloomy and unhappy though, so who can complain? The best track is probably the second. You can just picture a miserable funeral march tramping slowly down a road in the forest in the rain as that one opens up. Then the grunting appears and the funeral march apparently is sucked into hell. The grunting is strange on this album, not aggressive at all like most metalheads are used to. More mournful. A bit hard to relate to, though...perhaps more clean vocals would have been more effective for this project?? Who knows. Anyhow, what we have here is an excellent record put together by musicians who knew exactly what they wanted to do. Buy it. Imagine the hours of fun you'll have suffering in depression!...

Depressing the way i like........2004-08-12

Not knowing much about shape of despair i chose to give their album "angels of distress " a listing and well its pretty good. For any one into extreme slow,dark,mournfull, &,depressing music that can make you think about killing yourself, siriously. Get it !!

This is a real disappointment.......2004-07-29

Angels could be a cool album, but it's just not. I was looking forward to hearing the old Amorphis singer again, in a new forum. He's still awesome, but the rest of the band is just bad. The riffs are unimaginative and the drumming is simple and entirely too bare bones. Really, what ruined this for me, I think, besides the fact that it's boring, is that I purchased and listened to Evoken's Quietus before this album. As far as I am concerned, Evoken are the reigning gods of funeral doom. In fact, they really need to come out with another darn album. Quietus is intense, atmospheric and amazingly complex doom metal. Go buy Evoken's album instead.

Dear Shape of Despair,.......2004-06-15

I'm very impressed by the way you are able to capture the feeling of sadness so well in your songs. I'm very impressed by the growling abilities of Pasi Koskinen (whose vocals with Amorphis I did NOT rate). But that's about where my compliments end. Sorry, but your music is just too repetitive to keep my attention. Repeating the same riff for the 400th time does NOT make it more powerful than than 100th time you hear it. You could have condensed this entire album into one awesome 7 or 8 minute song, but then I guess you would have had to come up with something else. I'm afraid I can't listen to this except as background music. I suggest you learn from the masters, My Dying Bride, on how to make quality doom metal. That is all.

Yours sincerely,
Some guy

funeral music..........2004-06-05

Please... I never been so bored in my entire life while listinin to this garbage. The songs are way to slow & drummer sucks real bad! Siriously, when i first got this-- i was like yawwwning nonstop. I mean, if you want to be depressed or put to sleep then go head put this on your stereo but if you want good & fast music that isn't boring...Then skip it ! Shape of dispair should be where they put crap like staind,korn,Marlyn manson,flaw,adema, and other depressing and boring bands that are unspering and plays terrible music and they have no heavyness in their sound neithe because their too slow !!

Average customer rating:

Not their best, but still exquisite funeral doom.
Doesn't Compare To "Angels of Distress"
(4.5) Funereal art

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Shape of Despair
Manufacturer: Season of Mist
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Shades of...

ASIN: B000A2H7B8
Release Date: 2005-08-23

Tracks:

Sleep Mirrored
Still-Motion
Entwined in Mystery
Curse Life
Fragile Emptiness
Illusion's Play

Customer Reviews:

Not their best, but still exquisite funeral doom........2006-05-21

Let's get something straight before I start. In my opinion, Shape of Despair is quite possibly the best band to come out in the last decade. Keep that in mind when reading a Shape of Despair review written by The Trickster. Back in 2001, I was rapidly losing interest in the modern metal scene, mainly due to constant clones appearing and mediocre releases from previously excellent bands. Then came Shape of Despair's "Angels in Distress" album. Not since My Dying Bride's "Turn Loose the Swans" had I heard such melancholic, beautiful, emotion inducing music. It reinvigorated my love of metal, and set off a temporary obsession with all things funeral doom. I tracked down the bands debut album "Shades of..." and found to my utter disbelief, that it was just as good, if not better! While listening to Shape of Despair, nothing else in the world matters to me. I am simply alone in those very moments, enraptured by the utter destitution and emotions of sorrow.

I have debated these feelings with others on many occasions now. Why is it that some of us find music filled with loss, despair, sorrow, darkness etc. to actually be uplifting? Anyway, that's a discussion for another time. Onto the review...
"Illusion's Play" contains 6 tracks and times in at over 60 minutes. This should give you some idea as to what you're in for here. Long epic tracks of funeral doom that contain heavy guitars, extremely slow drum beats, atmospheric keyboard work, and growled vocals. Things are a little different this time around though. The extraordinary female vocals of the last two releases have been reduced to a couple of appearances, which I find disappointing. Fortunately, they have added a couple of lengthy ambient string sections that are truly breathtaking. "Fragile Emptiness" is a departure for Shape of Despair that sounds more like something that Skepticism would create, although I find its repetitiveness a little distracting to an otherwise beautiful album.

"Still-Motion", "Curse Life" and "Entwined in Misery" are all classic Shape of Despair epics that make this album essential, even if it doesn't quite live up to the high standard set by their first two albums. If you've never heard the band, I'd start with "Angels of Distress", and finish with this one. There's a few mp3s on the bands website for you to have a listen. Now if only that Esoteric, Skepticism, Shape of Despair tour would come to Australia. Please?

Doesn't Compare To "Angels of Distress".......2005-11-21

"Angels of Distress" was an album with such powerful emotion and beautiful melody. Their latest album "Illusion's Play" however is truly lacking emotion and melody. The songs are mainly monotone hymns of depression. I am rarely bored when listening to bands like My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Evoken and How Like A Winter but this album is just a bore fest. Seriously, it is as if the songs on this album are composed around one note.

(4.5) Funereal art.......2005-10-03

This is the only Shape of Despair album I've heard. Basically, they're a solid funeral metal band. The songs are slow, minimalistic, and beautiful, in a metal way. The singer has a great death metal voice, and the reverb on it is brutal. On the second song and in certain parts of the others he does some clean singing, usually in conjunction with the female singer in the band. Normally I hate clean singing when it's mixed with metal, but the girl has a great voice that really goes with the sorrowful tone of the music. Actually, the only reason I gave this 4(.5) stars is because I think Pasi, the main singer, should sing more in the songs. He really has a great death voice. Of course, being a funeral band, there are the inevitable Evoken comparisons - I will do mine in reference to "Quietus." Whereas Evoken focuses on making bleak, crushingly slow funeral, SoD has more of a melancholic, warmly flowing style of funeral. When Pasi is singing, he hands-down beats the vocals on Quietus. On the other hand, the drumming is way better on Quietus; SoD has some pretty basic and boring drummming. But really, if you like funeral metal, you'll like this album.

Average customer rating:

Shape of Despair
Shape of Despair
Manufacturer: Season of Mist
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000GRTQL6
Release Date: 2006-09-05

Tracks:

Sleeping Murder
Night's Dew
Sylvan-Night
Quiet These Paintings Are (Outro)
To Adorn
Shadowed Dreams
In the Mist

Average customer rating:

Shape of Despair
Shape of Despair
Manufacturer: Season of Mist
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Goth | Goth & Industrial | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

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General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000GRTQKW
Release Date: 2006-09-05

Tracks:

Sleeping Murder
Night's Dew
Sylvan-Night
Quiet These Paintings Are (Outro)
To Adorn
Shadowed Dreams
In the Mist

Average customer rating:

Shape of Despair
Shape of Despair
Manufacturer: Spikefarm
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Goth | Goth & Industrial | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B000ARUY2M
Release Date: 2005-08-22

Tracks:

Sleeping Murder
Night's Dew
Sylvan-Night
Quiet These Paintings Are (Outro)
To Adorn
Shadowed Dreams
In the Mist

Album Description

This album opens with a brand new song showcasing the band in the zenith of their career. This is funeral doom the way it is meant to be, but Shape Of Dispair manage to make it sound almost catchy at the same time, no mean feat! From the bright, blood-red doomsday sun glow of the said song, 'Sleeping Murder', it is time to preceed deep down to the vale of shadows. And shadows, they sure are plentiful here. Whether it is the rehearsal track from ten years ago (time flies swiftly on black wings!) or the promo tracks dating from 1998, the deternimation and aim of the band shines through clear as ice. 7 tracks. Spikefarm Records. 2005.

Album Details

In the Past Few Years, Shape of Despair have Become a Force to Be Reckoned With, Being Very Much the Doom Band in Finland Outside the Traditionalist School Exemplified by Reverend Bizarre (Another Luminary of the Diverse Spikefarm Roster). To Celebrate the Long-lasting Co-operation Between Spikefarm Records and Shape of Despair, Here Comes Along a Gargantuan Slab of Damnation from Finland's Premier Funeral Doom Outfit in the Form of a Rarities Compilation.

Average customer rating:

Illusion's Play
Shape of Despair
Manufacturer: Spinefarm
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000620NAO
Release Date: 2006-04-04

Tracks:

Sleep Mirrored
Still-Motion
Entwined in Mystery
Curse Life
Fragile Emptiness
Illusion's Play

Album Description

Third album from Finnish act who more than live up to their name. Tranquil, serene, yet brooding with the same sense of impending doom as their earlier albums. 2004.

Music Track:

Music Track

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