Description

In 2001 Shape Of Despair released their ‘Angels In Distress’ album and not since My Dying Bride’s ‘Turn Loose The Swans’ had there been such a melancholic, beautiful, emotion inducing music. Their third album ‘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 contains 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 but instead 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.

Track list:
1. Sleep Mirrored
2. Still-Motion
3. Entwined In Misery
4. Curse Life
5. Fragile Emptiness
6. Illusion’s Play