Deep, dark, and dynamic Wisconsin black metallers SHROUD OF DESPONDENCY will release the CD version of Pine on March 1st. The album was just released digitally and can be purchased at shroudofdespondency.bandcamp.com/album/pine.

The self-released album follows 2011’s critically lauded Dark Meditations of Monastic Seclusion. The prolific act also released the well received Objective:Isolation, a collection of previously unreleased tracks a few months later in 2011. Main man and composer Rory Heikkila has this to say about Pine. ” Pine has one goal and that is to blot out any light that existed on Dark Meditations… Here the lush acoustic pieces of previous albums have largely been replaced by ambient improv synth pieces and the awkwardness of the instrumentals is designed to reflect the alienation and despair in the lyrics. Every track further explores human suffering, discomfort, alienation, and the overcoming of the human condition. New singer Ron Blemberg adds the much needed harshness to the vocal department while the rest of the band, despite losing drummer Jeremiah shortly after the recording process was complete, is even tighter and more focused on creating original music than ever. This focus on despair creates the visceral assault that is Pine.”

Recorded again at Folkpocalypse studios in Milwaukee and released with a special downloadable bonus disc called Cavalcade of Crows, available upon purchase of Pine, it could easily be considered business as usual. Only this time SHROUD OF DESPONDENCY is even more focused on the bleak and absurd. Taking influence from old school death metal (Morbid Angel, Immolation, Bolt Thrower), Black Metal (Inquisition, Root, Negura Bunget, Emperor, Burzum), and prog (King Crimson and Mike Oldfield). Shroud of Despondency truly does not care about labels, only expulsion of negativity through creation- this is Pine.