It appears to have become a habit for me to miss the new album releases by the Finnish one-woman doomgaze act, SHEDFROMTHEBODY, when they come out and find out about them weeks or even months later. It happened with her third album, “Amare,” a couple of years ago, and now it has happened again, with her fourth full-length album, “Whisper and Wane,” which was released independently on January 17th, 2025. As luck would have it, Spotify also keeps reminding me about older releases from artists that I’m supposed to keep an eye on, so I won’t be kept in the dark about quality releases for too long. The thing is – when it comes to darkly shaded shoegaze, SHEDFROMTHEBODY has been top of the class ever since the 2020 debut, “A Dead and Aimless Hum,” and the new album further cements Suvi Saarikko, the woman behind the artistic alias, as a doomgaze force to be reckoned with. Whereas the new outing flirts quite openly with beefy post-metal flourishes here and there, just like the previous album did, the overall feel harkens back to the ambient, fever-dreamy realm of the debut, but with a vengeance. Had I barely listened through the album once, I was already poised to dub this selection as one of the best Finnish metal albums to come out this year. It’s no small feat to weave such haunting spirals of emotion with this sort of ambient minimalism.
Maybe it’s just me being a proud relic from the original slacker generation, but once again, I couldn’t help but notice nice 1990s vibes sprinkled throughout the album. They begin to resonate right off the bat in the opener, “Destroyer,” the music of which could basically be vintage DEFTONES in slow motion; Saarikko‘s ethereal vocals whisper and hum atop droning guitars and synths, creating a haunting and highly cinematic sonic canvas of gloom. There is a sonic kinship between SHEDFROMTHEBODY and Chelsea Wolfe, for sure. With the songcraft being of this caliber, I certainly hope that this music will get the recognition it deserves, the sooner the better.
While this type of music might be a tad too hazy for the masses, in general, the second track, “Mooring,” instantly comes off so mesmerizing that it could be described as catchy, even. It is by far one of the most immersive, post-metal-esque bangers in the selection. The feeling of being totally immersed in the wall of distortion only intensifies with the next post-metal riffer, “Nail,” which further gears up on the down-tuned, slow-crushing riffs. The pairing of atmospheric post-metal and Saarikko‘s playful, angelic vocals is a match made in heaven. This song triggered subtle flashbacks of the recent Tuska Festival performance by the Australian industrial outfit, SKYND, even (minus the excessive use of vocal effects, of course) – oh, man! I’m not sure whether this act does live shows, but… Wouldn’t it be cool to see SHEDFROMTHEBODY on stage one day?
The absolute standout track is the punchy, breakbeat-driven riffer, “Sungazer.” I’m not even sure what genre I should put it in. The ambient melancholy would go right down the shoegaze alley, even with the doomish guitar riffs, but the syncopated beat leans quite heavily in an entirely different direction – electronica almost, even though it is played with real drums. Then again, PARADISE LOST did “One Second,” back in the day, so… The song breaks the ambient mold rather nicely.
Yeah, there are a good few ambient tracks to come, too. “Milk” resonates thickly with the air of SYLVAINE, while “Velveteen” leans perhaps more toward the ethereal doom of Chelsea Wolfe. In fact, “Milk” made me realize just how good vocalist Saarikko is – her vocals are drenched in liberal amounts of reverb most of the time, but on this track, she lets her vocals shine with the reverb turned down a notch. There’s a subtle Nordic Noir vibe in the song, too, making me entertain the thought that she could make a killing in that genre just as well.
Then, eventually, the “Brian Eno meets DEFTONES” vibes of “The Choke” lead to the haunting closer, “Kenopsia.” The song title refers to the obscure feeling of sad emptiness about a place that used to be bustling with life before but now lies abandoned and quiet. The song is an atmospheric, 5-minute journey into that liminal space, exactly. If there is one song that truly lives up to its name, it is this one. They say that if our house ever feels haunted, it is because we are haunting it ourselves, trying to revisit all the memories we once lived there. As if there were something still there for us, something that got buried beneath the years. The song captures this very yearning so well that it gives you the chills. The immersive wall of distortion recalls some of the most post-rockish endeavors by DEFTONES or IRESS, but overall, the song’s vibe is more shoegazey than metal. What a heart-churning closure for this haunting album! Yeah, sure, the new SHEDFROMTHEBODY album does not bring anything drastically new to the table, but it does what it knows best – and does it with a little bit more finesse than last time, plunging deeper and deeper into the fever dreams.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Destroyer
- Mooring
- Nail
- Sungazer
- Milk
- Velveteen
- The Choke
- Kenopsia
Lineup
Suvi Saarikko – all instruments
Label
Independent
