It always seemed to be a bit weird that the Finnish Death Metal scene was unable to reach the same level of mainstream Metal popularity that Death Metal acts from Sweden (ENTOMBED, DISMEMBER) and from the United Kingdom (CARCASS, BOLT THROWER) did. The only bands from Finland that reached a higher level of acclaim were AMORPHIS and SENTENCED (both changed dramatically their sound in the process though).

Well DESOLATE SHRINE is here trying to remedy that. The Death Metal band from Helsinki plays top quality retro Death Metal directly influenced from their countries older scene. So if you what you want to listen to is highly distorted guitars, twisted leads while retaining a more "melodic" side, drumming that can easily change from groove parts to blastbeats and lengthy songs that manage to keep you attention fixed to them, then you will definitely like "The Sanctum of Human Darkness".

Like most of the old Finnish Death Metal bands, DESOLATE SHRINE play mid tempo songs, with quite a few faster parts and blastbeats, of course, for instance on the beginning and near the ending of their strongest track "Lair of Wolf & 1000 Lions", with groovier playing on "Chalice of Flesh and Bone" (amazing groove on the whole on this song, sounds like the twisted bastard born from ENTOMBED and DEMIGOD) and in its most extreme form fast drumming appears on the ending of "Demon Heart", almost grind like. Also they alter their sound with a few Black Metal elements to their leads (at least I think that they got that eerie black metal sound, for example the beginning of "Pillars of Salvation", feels like a descent to hell). With great growling vocals, vocalists ML and RS are working together really well, offering a degree of variation to the voices. Multi instrumentalist LL is able to perform really well in all instruments from the fuzzy guitars to the faster and groovier drumming. Really nice clean parts are also placed carefully in parts of the songs (about 4 and a half minutes in "Chalice of Flesh and Bone" for example) and intro/song "Corridor" and interlude "Old Man's Visit", act like the calm before the storm breaks adding a haunting atmosphere on the records as a whole.

Of course the show stealer of the album are the guitars. I need only one word to describe the guitars: Chaos. The parts are really well structured and their sound is completely overwhelming. The distortion used, I can only guess, is homage to the old Swedish and Finnish Death Metal scenes. The only problem is that in order to get a guitar sound like that, some of the other instruments are a bit lost on the background, but this is old school death metal so it does not really matter if your production is not perfect., and your sound is a bit muddy (actually it might even be a good thing). Only other downside is that although "The Sanctum of Human Darkness" is a great album, there is not much originality on the whole, but frankly this record is so good and I am so glad that there are still bands that appreciate the old Finnish Death Metal sound, and are influenced by it, that I can only say: "who gives a fuck?"

So if you are like me and worship albums like "Slumber of Sullen Eyes" (DEMIGOD), "World Without God" (CONVULSE) and "Vulgar Necrolatry" (ABHORRENCE), the very first AMORHIS and SENTENCED albums ("The Karelian Isthmus" and "Shadows of Past" respectively) or early Doom / Death bands such as WINTER and DISEMBOWELMENT then it is highly unlikely you will not appreciate DESOLATE SHRINE. If you don't believe just listen to two songs from their first album ("Tenebrous Towers"), which can be found on their bandcamp page.

As a footnote, excellent artwork by LL, which I can only guess that it is a depiction of the beginning of the biblical Apocalypse, for which "The Sanctum of Human Darkness" would work perfectly as its soundtrack.