Band:	Shedfromthebody
Album:	A Dead And Aimless Hum
Style:	Shoegaze, Doom metal
Release date:	May 2020

01. Pathea
02. Hum
03. Sol
04. Hyaline
05. Curl
06. Cherubian Hand
07. Axhide
08. Paso Fino
09. Veins
10. A Better Place
11. A Disintegration

What would it sound like if you mixed classic Finnish gloom, metal's fascination with shoegaze in the past decade, and the rise of Chelsea Wolfe-sque doomed folk?

I mean it would obviously sound something like the object of this review, that was a rhetorical question. Quite frankly I don't really know why black metal seemed to be the one to mix with shoegaze so often, since doom metal's wall of guitars seems to work closest to shoegaze's. Plus its gloom works with the dream pop aspects of it. And the doom folk definitely also has a lot of influence from early 00s alternative music, so this mishmash is actually a pretty cohesive sound, influenced by a lot of things from the past one or two decades, but also something that doesn't feel like it's done nearly enough in this style. Ladies and gentlemen: doomgaze.

At least so it is self-described, and I'm not going to disagree. If you think it sounds stupid, I cringed much harder the first time I heard "blackgaze". It sounds like a lot of things that I mentioned, and probably the closest thing to it is Chelsea Wolfe's Hiss Spun, but there's a lot more ethereal dream pop and shoegaze influence here. From the slightly hazier vocals to the walls of doom metal guitar, that also go into what I could kinda call riffs more often than expected. Sadly it is quite apparent that this is a one-(wo)man project, as the sound lacks that live fullness. There isn't really any element where I'd say that the playing is subpar, with the drumming especially being surprisingly good, and the layering sure is superb, but that feeling is still there regardless.

Suvi's vocals are a definite highlight on this album, being on par with most of the other gals who've came to metal admiration in the past decade. Obviously the processing makes it sound more ethereal than it actually is, but the effect doesn't hide the natural sense of gloom that resides. Harrowing, dreamlike and bleak is definitely a winning combination. A lot of the album, being as atmosphere-focused as it is, is more on the slow-burning side of things, building tension and washing you in a beautiful dread. I don't think said tension building gets satisfying releases as often as I'd want it to, but I'm not going to deny that when done right, like in "Curl", it's done to marvelous effect.

So there are some issues in how to properly construct a full sound from one person and how to construct a full song from one sound, but the things A Dead And Aimless Hum does right far outweigh the ones it lacks.