"A duo with members from Desolate Shrine and Dark Buddha Rising delivering crushingly oppressive doom from a country known for delivering crushingly oppressive doom.
Scars Across is the debut album from Convocation, which is sort of a supergroup, consisting of LL, who does all the instruments for Desolate Shrine, and MN, who does vocals for Dark Buddha Rising. The end result is equal parts funeral doom and a more doomy version of the atmospheric death metal of Desolate Shrine.
The two flavours are often shifting the pace of the album from slow and
heavy to very slow and heavy to moments when we can catch our breath,
but in all its moments the music focuses mostly on atmosphere, one which
reeks of misanthropic hatred and gloom.
Convocation
manages by the frequent pace shifts and complex layering to avoid most
pitfalls of extreme doom metal, managing to have enough repetition for
it not to disregard atmosphere building, and enough variation to avoid
sameness. And with all of the songs being over ten minutes in length,
there is a lot that Convocation
must do to keep the song moving, and they do manage it. The
keyboard/organ especially does lift the atmosphere to an almost epic
apocalyptic aura while maintaining certain similarities to Skepticism.
Add that on top of the versatile guitar riffing and the powerful vocal
performance and "crushing" is no longer just a cliché term. The vocal
performance also deserves praise. While most of the album is performed
in that deep growl, MN does explore his range a bit at times, with
higher shrieks and cleans and whispers to further the eerie ambiance." -metal storm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jWZlaO1V8k