Band:	Convocation
Album:	Scars Across
Style:	Death doom metal
Release date:	March 2018

01. Disposed
02. Ruins Of Ourselves
03. Allied POWs
04. Scars Across

A duo with members from Desolate Shrine and Dark Buddha Rising delivering crushingly oppressive doom from a country known for delivering crushingly oppressive doom.

Scars Across is the debut album from Convocation, which is sort of a supergroup, consisting of LL, who does all the instruments for Desolate Shrine, and MN, who does vocals for Dark Buddha Rising. The end result is equal parts funeral doom and a more doomy version of the atmospheric death metal of Desolate Shrine. The two flavours are often shifting the pace of the album from slow and heavy to very slow and heavy to moments when we can catch our breath, but in all its moments the music focuses mostly on atmosphere, one which reeks of misanthropic hatred and gloom.

Convocation manages by the frequent pace shifts and complex layering to avoid most pitfalls of extreme doom metal, managing to have enough repetition for it not to disregard atmosphere building, and enough variation to avoid sameness. And with all of the songs being over ten minutes in length, there is a lot that Convocation must do to keep the song moving, and they do manage it. The keyboard/organ especially does lift the atmosphere to an almost epic apocalyptic aura while maintaining certain similarities to Skepticism. Add that on top of the versatile guitar riffing and the powerful vocal performance and "crushing" is no longer just a cliché term. The vocal performance also deserves praise. While most of the album is performed in that deep growl, MN does explore his range a bit at times, with higher shrieks and cleans and whispers to further the eerie ambiance.

We can't be sure if this is a one-off joining of malevolent Finnish forces or we'll get more collaborations between the two, but one thing is for sure, Scars Across perfectly encapsulates the sound of a wormhole spewing misery and despair into the world. You can open that wormhole here.