HOODED MENACE Reawaken Classic Horror on New Single “Pale Masquerade”

Listen to “Pale Masquerade” on the Season of Mist YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/KcIBvJoXPE0

Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration comes out October 3, 2025 on Season of Mist.

Pre-order & Pre-save:
https://orcd.co/hoodedmenacelachrymosemonumentsofobscuration

More praise for Hooded Menace:

“Hooded Menace have consistently succeeded in boasting a bludgeon of unruly extremity” – Angry Metal Guy

“As always, hail Lasse” – BangerTV

“After the riffs fade into the cavern’s ancient silence, the shrouded specters turn and watch Pyykkö, a hoodie casting shadows over his eyes. In unison, they nod in approval. Fade to black” – Decibel

“…it’s good to see metal’s customary dance with past being respected and admired, but also put to enlightened use” – Metal Injection

“Hooded Menace have figured out how to do death-doom with honest-to-Elder Gods hooks, and it fits them like an executioner’s glove” – New Noise

“Finland’s Hooded Menace strike big” – Invisible Oranges

“If horror/ doom / death is a sub-genre, Hooded Menace is undoubtedly its master” – Last Rites

“…they have proven risks can pay off” – Distorted Sound

“Hooded Menace’s approach to death and doom gives listeners an array of hard-hitting and darkly sublime cuts” – Treble

“Hooded Menace are back to put on a death-doom clinic” – Everything Is Noise

“Hooded Menace cement their status at the forefront of modern death/doom and prove Pyykkö’s songwriting prowess once again” – Toilet Ov Hell

“…these Finns started and perfected this modern death/doom sound that everyone has been aping for the past decade, so it is always good to see the originators back in action” – The Sleeping Shaman

“They manage to separate themselves with a more diverse sound that constantly changes and avoids the generic death metal templates” – MetalBite

“Death-Doom’s most consistent band” – The Metal Meltdown

“These guys know how to write devastatingly killer dual guitar work” – Forgemaster Metal (Best Doom Metal Albums of 2021)

For closing in on two decades, Hooded Menace have stood not as a bridge but the pillar between two underground realms. The band’s upcoming seventh album still paves the way for metal legions who prefer headbanging to more creepily, crushing tempos. However, while Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration is still rooted in a cultish obsession with the classics, these stewards of death-doom remain far from stuck in their ways.

Starting as a teenager in the late ’80s, founding member Lasse Pyykkö got his start in Joensuu, Finland with the band Phlegethon. But the undead spirit that’s guided Hooded Menace since its 2007 conception first appeared back when he was just a young hesher. Dracula, Poltergeist, A Nightmare on Elm Street and other horrors piqued his morbid curiosity. Though later on, it was feasting on the cult classic Tombs of the Blind Dead that spawned the band’s accursed two-track demo.

“It’s the dark element”, Lasse recalls when asked what Hooded Menace draws from its source material five albums removed from the band’s terrifying breakthrough Never Cross the Dead.

The blind dead still stand watch over Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration. Returning cover artist Wes Benscoter recreates the Knights Templar in all their glowingly ghoulish glory. “Pale Masquerade” paints a familiar scene, summoning Amando de Ossorio’s flesh-eating muse with a fresh heap of Lasse’s bone-crunching chugs. “The dead army grows“, Harri Kuokkanen commands with growls that reek of the crypt. Lifelong converts will quickly fall in line behind steadfast drummer Pekka Koskelo, who dips “Daughters of Lingering Pain” into the same dripping vat of wax as the band’s 2010s effigies for Relapse Records. The lasting influence of Candlemass and Paradise Lost hasn’t vanished without a trace. But Hooded Menace continue to break the mold they helped set for death-doom right from the album’s opening jump scare. Neon keys beam through “Twilight Passages” as if firing up a time machine.

Reinvention isn’t new to Hooded Menace. While a menacing vocalist in his own right, Lasse passed the proverbial mic torch to Kuokkanen for the gloomier melodies that haunted the band’s initial offering after signing with Season of Mist late in 2016. Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed was also pulled more from the shadows of their imagination as opposed to the silver screen. Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration trends further in that direction; the lyric sheet unfurls like a house of psychological horrors, where the hallways are hung with shattered mirrors and faceless portraits. Only this time around, the trio really hammered home the influence of ’80s heavy metal that was rung in by previous long-player The Tritonus Bell. “Lugubrious Dance” twists between the hallucinogenic spires of Cathedral in conspiracy with King Diamond before cranking into a chorus that’s classic Hooded Menace.

MicroPitching and other effects aren’t the only tricks of the trade that are pulled out from under Hooded Menace’s cloak. Traditional death-doomers might have been pleasantly surprised by the band covering W.A.S.P., so imagine the delighted screams upon hearing a Top of the Pops’ gem like “Save a Prayer” splattered in their signature blood-soaked dread. Lasse’s riffs still cement the rock-solid foundation beneath Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration, but even he was surprised when sculpting its lead single. What should appear from the double bass swirling amidst “Portrait Without a Face” but the moan of a cello. Like an echo from beyond the grave, the cry of strings reappears during the album’s grand finale. Former live bassist Antti Poutanen sorrowfully saws as the band marches, gallops then sinks back “Into Haunted Oblivion”.

On Lachyrmose Monuments of Obscuration, Hooded Menace cast death-doom in a ghostly new light.

Available Formats:
Digital download
CD Digipack
12″ Vinyl (Black)
12″ Colored Vinyl (Red)
12″ Colored Vinyl (Purple)
12″ Colored Vinyl (Crystal clear with red and blue marble)
12″ Liquid-filled Vinyl (Slime yellow)