Liminal Shroud - Visions of Collapse
British Columbia (BC) is rich with museums, heritage sites, art galleries, and studios. It is a vibrant and diverse scene, often inspired by indigenous culture. Add to that, the natural beauty of the landscape and architecture, and you have a huge palette that creative people can draw inspiration from.
The super inspired and creative Liminal Shroud are from Victoria, BC, and they are one of the more forward thinking and progressive Black Metal bands in modern extreme metal. If Liminal Shroud were to play ice cold and raw Black Metal that sounded like it was written in a cabin in the forests of Norway, then it would pose questions about the conviction and authenticity of the band, and its influences. Authentic and original bands are a sponge for their environment, and you can definitely hear that in Liminal Shroud’s third album, Visions of Collapse, and in their previous albums as well.
Liminal Shroud employ a lot of dynamics and different shades and colours in their version of Black Metal, incorporating melody, atmosphere, progressive rock and innovative transitions and song structures. Liminal Shroud, across three albums, have honed a style of Black Metal that demands attention once play is hit. Visions of Collapse is not background music; it is music that builds and evolves, and engages in different ways. Each musician is clearly accomplished with their instrument, and the songwriting is interesting and linear; it is not traditional verse, chorus, verse, bridge etc. This keeps the listener engaged and intrigued, even after multiple listens.
Opening with the evolving and beastly “Nocturnal Phosphoresence,” we get a poignant progressive rock guitar lead that teases the rest of the band into the fray. The momentum builds after a couple of moments before the “ooof!” vocal releases the hounds. The hero of this outstanding opening song is no doubt the rhythm section. The bass is noticeable in the mix, and that is pleasing as you don’t often hear that in extreme music.
“Nucleonic Blight” is pensive to begin with, with a gentle and clean guitar and whispered vocals. It is over 10 minutes long, so you are expecting things to evolve and transition, and when those transitions come, they are seamless. The vocals go from very clean to vile gutturals and you think nothing of it. While those transitions have been worked through carefully, you do often wonder across the duration of the album if a different vocal dynamic would work better. There is a really interesting deep clean vocal part used on “Malaspina,” which is almost Post Punk. But for the majority, the Black metal vocals do dominate proceedings in an otherwise very dynamic canvas of instruments. There is also nothing overly aggressive or brutal about the guitars. The tremolos are fast, but they edge Post Rock at times, so the dominant Black Metal vocals can become monotonous.
The album is 44 minutes, which is not a long album, but it is only 5 songs, with the fantastic “Malaspina” coming in at a bit over 4 minutes. So the remaining four songs have a lot going on. I would have liked another shorter song earlier on, perhaps a super aggressive slab of Black Metal to smack the listener in the face after the opening two progressive journeys. The album hits its straps with “Malaspina,” which certainly ups the aggression. The rhythm section is absorbing here (in a great way), and it drags you into the recesses of their universe. The song expands into exciting realms after the Post Punk clean vocal, with an interesting solo section that sounds very Celtic towards the end.
The double bass drumming on “Resolve” is too repetitive. I think they are better songwriters than that, and it has minimal impact, other than sounding lazy. The bass guitar just gets lost a little beneath it, which is a shame as the rhythm section as a whole is one of the strengths on this album. The clean vocals do not work here either, they sound weak and lack conviction. The song goes to a lot of places, but it does not take me anywhere emotionally. While a band like Baroness are miles from Black Metal, Liminal Shroud would benefit from examining how Baroness balance power and melody and emotion, particularly on their recent album Stone.
Melodic Black Metal requires a cleaner production than traditional and cold/bleak/raw Black Metal. That clarity is here and while it certainly does not sound like the album was recorded live, it does not sound overproduced either. You can hear the fingers move along the strings at the beginning of “Nucleonic Blight.”
Liminal Shroud put a lot into the creative process here, and that was obvious with their previous releases as well. Visions of Collapse is a forward thinking Black Metal album that does not want to be pigeon holed into a certain pocket of Black Metal. It is well worth your time, and has a lot more positives going for it than negatives. Not good enough to crack the Rolling Top Ten of 2024, but it is a very strong Black Metal release that does a lot more than the average band with corpse paint.