Band:	Shape Of Despair
Album:	Illusion's Play
Style:	Funeral doom metal
Release date:	September 27, 2004
A review by:	Undercraft

01. Sleep Mirrored
02. Still-Motion
03. Entwined In Misery
04. Curse Life
05. Fragile Emptiness
06. Illusion's Play

"Oh sweet hell bestow upon this humble servant all the sorrow and melancholy you have" I cried upon the gloomy night. Minutes after my request, a big black abyss opened before my eyes, inside the flames of vortex I felt pain, desperation, tragedy, misery and despondency. A black hand appeared, with something in it, I couldn't recognize the object, I was immobilized with fear and? despair.
"what you wished? it will be granted" told me a voice, and in my hands was? the new Shape Of Despair album.

Still shaking with an unknown felling i took the headphones with fear and pushed the play button on my way back home, immediately the night seemed darker, and my heart blacker, it was "Sleep Mirrored", the opening gate to a funeral world, from the first notes, I knew I was a prisoner.
I began the journey to the underworld of anguish with "Still-Motion", desolation grasped my soul, the enchanting female vocals were just a lure, for the devil was yet to come, the first growl told me to leave all behind and made me follow him to a place where hopelessness is the only feeling permitted.

I was going deeper and deeper into the flames of melancholy? could I handle it? Could I survive such devastating attack to my soul? "Entwined In Misery" proved me that maybe I'm made to face this world, with its pounding and slow motions I was immerse in the night, the growls were like raven chants in a cold eerie night in the graveyard.
Maybe someone saw me descending into madness wile I was walking mesmerized through the streets , maybe not, I don't know, I don't care?

But I know for sure that that strange force was reading my mind, because I saw myself in a mirror, and my feelings were palpable, I was experiencing a "Fragile Emptiness", because of my condition, I had to rely on the calmer, atmospherically moments of this one, but they were few and very inconstant, because when I least expected, the devil whispered to my ear again, telling me to succumb and join him in his throne of wretchedness.

At the end of the dark tunnel I saw a light, shinning very dim upon the weary night, I decided to follow it, but it was real? It was just an image? A dream ? an "Illusion's Play" ? I had to found out. I went through the last 12 minutes fighting the shades of misery, the dreams of distress, the embrace of sorrow?

I managed to do it, I was back in the "real" world, the light world, I left the shades of darkness behind, but.. after I give it a thought, which world was real, which was imaginary? The two coexist in a pretended harmony?

I got home, in my bed was a book, "Demian" by Herman Hesse, I read it again, and I understand it well, the world of shadows and the world of light are not meant to be separated, they're as one, as me, as you.
The night after that, I left my home, I carried my discman. I closed my eyes and pushed the play button again, it was time to taste again the joys of the world of despair?