Hooded Menace Debut Doomy ‘Blood Ornaments’ Off Sixth Album ‘The Tritonus Bell’

Hooded Menace, the death/doom band with an overwhelming sense of danceable groove and resplendent melody, have just announced their sixth album, The Tritonus Bell, alongside the release of the nine-minute debut single, “Blood Ornaments.”

This is just the second album to feature vocalist Harri Kuokkanen, who joined the group in 2016, enabling founder Lasse Pyykkö to relinquish his dual role in the band and focus strictly on guitar.

“Blood Ornaments” reasserts Hooded Menace’s affinity for both crawling, claustrophobic doom and groovier, more uptempo passages topped by melodic lead guitar playing, alongside some clear nods to metal’s iconic past.

“It is with utter excitement that we premiere the first track off our new album, The Tritonus Bell! There are definitely some new flavors added to the mix, and ‘Blood Ornaments’ comes with some of our most intriguing ingredients yet – and a bloody side taste. There’s a contrast between death/doom misery and head-bangable heavy metal riffs like never heard before in Hooded Menace´s music, making ‘Blood Ornaments’ my favorite track from the album,” offered Pyykkö.

The founder continued, “Obviously a lot of inspiration for The Tritonus Bell comes from the usual suspects Candlemass, Paradise Lost, and Trouble, but also classic ’80s heavy metal such as Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Dio, and Ozzy Osbourne.”

“Even if you can’t always put your finger on it, they all definitely played a big role in why The Tritonus Bell turned out the way it did. When it comes to mixing and mastering, we had the pleasure of working with King Diamond guitarist Andy LaRocque/Sonic Train Studios, who made sure everything would sound great, and I can honestly say I’ve never been more satisfied with the results sound- and music-wise,” Pyykkö added.

Listen to “Blood Ornaments” further down the page, below the lyrics, and view the artwork and complete track listing for The Tritonus Bell beneath the video player.

The Tritonus Bell will be released on Aug. 27 through Season of Mist and pre-orders can be placed here.

Hooded Menace, “Blood Ornaments” Lyrics

Weight of drunken tides
Where asylums disappear
Interment of pleasures
Excarnated in eternity

Merge with ashen realms
Decrepit jaws echo
The chant of dawning misery
In language too obscure

Fall, cherish the raw numbness
Undressed from carnal masquerades
Where the carcass vines grow long
Slowly downwards
Slowly engage

Empty their visage
Perverse and hollowed sleep
Dead orchids blossom endless
In sombre, sad vitality

Oozing the damp of nights
In suffocating depths
The pulse of death in the veins below
Rejoice the blood ornaments

Mad imprints of the dead
On the strands of emptiness
Wicked convolutions
Seized by gore

The murk runs through the arteries
Bringing forth nihility
Drenched in fierce affliction
A shrub of bones

Down the clefts of time
Like lesions so ornate
Allusive reliquaries
That subdue the forsaken ends

Senses flicker cold
Transfixed by the descent
Beneath the soil emitting ire
The vine grew one more name

Fall, cherish the raw numbness
Undressed from carnal masquerades
Where the carcass vines grow long
Slowly downwards
Slowly engage

Hooded Menace, “Blood Ornaments”

Keep up with each week’s new songs by following Loudwire’s ‘Weekly Wire’ Spotify playlist, featuring 50 tracks with updates each Friday afternoon.

Hooded Menace, The Tritonus Bell Album Art + Track Listing

1. “Chthonic Exordium” (1:16)
2. “Chime Diabolicus” (8:10)
3. “Blood Ornaments” (9:01)
4. “Those who absorb the Night” (5:52)
5. “Corpus Asunder” (7:17)
6. “Scattered into Dark” (9:05)
7. “Instruments of Somber Finality” (2:45)
Bonus Track
8. “The Torture Never Stops” (W.A.S.P. cover) (4:07)