Band: Shattered Hope
Album title: Absence
Label: Own release
Distribution: Lugga Music Productions
Release date: 31/08/2010
Review: CD

Shattered Hope were formed in 2002 in Athens, Greece, covering songs from bands as Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Saturnus etc. A first demo, A View Of Grief, was released in 2005, followed in early 2007 by a two-track promo-MCD. The band was able to perform live with huge names, such as Mourning Beloveth, Ahab, Mar De Grises or Saturnus; however it took another three years before the sextet (Sakis - g, Nick - v, George - d, Eygenia - k, Thanos - g, and Thanasis - b) was able to have their debut full length released.

This debut, Absence, was recorded at Live Studio (Athens) by Dimitris ‘Animal’ Kalantzis and Shattered Hope’s Sakis, who also did the mix; and the mastering was done at CCR Studio by Kris Belaen, who’s known for his mastering assistance to especially Belgian bands (like, for example, Psalm, Thurisaz, Putrid Inbred, Moker, Neverlight Horizon amongst others). The album features guest vocals by Jonathan ‘Marquis’ Théry from Ataraxie, Hyadningar or Reign Of Evil, to name a few, and Thomas Jensen of Saturnus-fame, a band that has been one of the main sources of inspiration to Shattered Hope. At this very moment, Shattered Hope haven’t been signed to any label, but Spanish promotion office Lugga Music takes care of the distribution and promotion duties.
Absence, lasting for more than an hour, has clearly been influenced by My Dying Bride. As a matter of fact, Shattered Hope implements My Dying Bride-elements from these UK-godzzz’ complete history. I mean that this mournful, icy album has elements from the early years, mid-years, as well as the current explorations My Dying Bride create.  And what’s more: they do it with grandeur! Damn, this isn’t just copying, this is re-interpreting the best in an own, extremely funereal way. ‘An own way’ has to do with the self-sought direction. Opening track “Amidst Nocturnal Silence”, for example, consists of a wonderful Funeral Doom-mid-piece too (hellish and heavenly), and some other titles do have elements from Funeral Doom or old school-oriented Gothic/ Doom-Death Metal as well. Performed extremely tastefully, indeed! So: not just cloning any band yet translating timeless Doom into, well, an own form of timeless Über-Doom…

There’s a wide variation on melodies, yet with one general specificity: oppressing and pitch-black coldness. It doesn’t matter if it’s about a melancholic or aggressive, a slow or an ultra-slow part, (semi) acoustic or energetic; all of it exhales a darkest purity, an obscure beauty, wretched, abyssal, suffocating, mesmerizing, ominous in its most grim definition.

92/100

Ivan Tibos.