Clayshaper announces its debut album for 2022.
Formed in 2018 in Sweden by Shaper (all instruments/vocals/artwork), the project will release 4 EPs before offering us Vampiric, still independently.
The album starts with the short and ominous Prologue which offers us mysterious sounds before Town Bell takes over with mesmerizing melodies and massive screams. The solid rhythmic will be interspersed with haunting and suffocating parts in which some voices come to life, then the melancholic leads drive us to the majestic Hex Rite, on which melodies take over. We have some dissonance in those quiet harmonics, then the rhythmic accelerates to become more violent without forgetting its airy leads, creating a contrast we can also find on the heavy Graveyard Ecdysis and its soothing tonalities. A soft ghostly voice comes to feed the mystical side of the track before Sunrise Cult wraps us in a slow and melodious softness full of raw screams. The old school mix gives the riffs some flavor, just like on Vampiric and its more energetic tones, interspersed with softer parts. We will notice a more powerful drumming which will be the basis of the soaring guitars, then Blood Healer shrouds us again in these dissonant and misty sonorities. Barrowborn is immediately more raw and impressive before drowning us again under the misty and soaring elements, just like on Forest Regalia and its softness which is only broken by screams. The track is long and hypnotic, but darkness will resurface on Spirit Linked, a more oppressive, but also more violent song with this abrasive acceleration. A massive part literally crushes us before the softer final, then The Coveted Nectar comes to close the album with a sometimes raw, sometimes more mysterious rhythmic, which remains anchored in the project’s dissonant roots.
When I discovered Clayshaper, I was intrigued by its universe. A Death Metal basis, hypnotic melodies, dissonant roots… Vampiric will surprise you before shrouding you in its soft and mysterious sounds.
85/100