I’ve always been more drawn to art that induces ‘negative’ emotions over ‘positive’ ones.1 I hate happy endings; I want art to make me cry or feel deeply unsettled; I feel deeply soothed by the pathos of wallowing. As a result, the depressive goth-synth-doom of Hours of Worship more than appeals. Morbid Hearts, Trembling Master, and Wound are back, this time joined by new permanent member Loathe, who lends her voice to the chorus of apathy. Resignation, as its name suggests, turns from the bitterness and despair of The Cold that You Left and the Death & Dying duology towards the acceptance and even welcoming of death. As ever, Hours of Worship give funeral doom and DSBM a run for their money in the bleakness of their concept and the sound of their music. But Resignation shows, perhaps best in their career so far, how something so bleak can still be beautiful.
Resignation is the closest Hours of Worship have come to metal, the blurred boundary between the synthetic and the metallic intensifying the cheerlessness. Distorted screams and growls are often the sole voice or duet alongside sung vocals, wrapped in weeping or eerie refrains in ways that variously remind me of Clouds (“You Hold No Value,” “Violent Thoughts are Not Enough”) and None (“True Loathe,” “Resignation”). Dissonance pulls at the corners of several of the primarily mournful melodies, led by odd key arrangements and layering of guitar and synths. This peaks in mid-album “Solace,” a collaboration with Psywarfare, whose disturbing electro-noise meets Hours of Worship’s ambience for an experience akin to a darker, much more frightening version of Bong-Ra. Stepping not once out of a funereal somnambulation, compositions progress to a soft, minimalist beat and let the lamenting melody lead; suspended animation is replaced with a smarter use of liminal space and a realised sense of build.
Resignation by Hours of Worship
In Resignation’s particular blend and evolution of the act’s musical strands, Hours of Worship have found their truest and most wretched expression. The characteristic intoxicating sullenness of minor melodies, gently swaying grooves, and apathetic cleans is deepened to dangerously opioid levels. Refrains are yet more direly lugubrious and gorgeous (“Resignation,” “The Weight Beneath,” “Violent Thoughts…”), and there’s considerably more depth to their trajectories that layer synths and guitars for dreamlike (“Lower than Want,” “Bury Me in Deep Waters”) and emphatic (“You Hold No Value,” “The Weight Beneath”) effect. Hours of Worship use rhythm to accentuate these themes, dropping the beat (“You Hold…,” “Resignation,” “Bury Me…”) or just the percussion (“The Weight Beneath,” “Violent Thoughts…”) out suddenly, syncing vocals with scales and chimes with purring feedback pulses to the tempo of the album’s ebbing heartbeat. Loathe is a perfect addition, her haunting singing striking the balance between apathetic and despairing, channelling the canny rhythms through listless repetitions (“The Weight Beneath”). She acts as a foil to the morose cleans and agonised growls of her masculine counterparts who often go together in a baleful duet (“Resignation,” “Violent Thoughts…”) or snarl in almost defensive cruelty (“You Hold No Value,” “Solace”) while she laments alone in open vulnerability (“Lower than Want,” “The Weight Beneath”).
Relative to its style and subgenre, Resignation is compelling. Kindred spirits of myself and Hours of Worship, who love the gloom, shouldn’t have any problem with getting in an appropriately receptive mood, but this time the more involved and better developed compositions are likely to lure some previous naysayers to the graveyard. Baleful and melancholic in the majority, the album is but slightly weakened by the almost uplifting melody of closer “Abattoir Heart.” The brutal “Solace”—though powerful in how confrontationally dissonant and unsettling it is, also sticks out a little too much for comfort—as though comfort were really Hours of Worship’s concern. Despite these reservations, Resignation flows assuredly and strangely enough feels very consistent, with no lapses in the magnetism of the melodies or the misery.
Hours of Worship may have seemed like an act that wouldn’t evolve beyond the particularly languid lugubriousness of the Death & Dying duology. Yet they step into a new chapter here with a nuance and depth that add meaningful layers to already bottomless woe. Resignation may not be formed quite right to deliver a killing blow, but never have they come so seductively close.
Rating: Very Good2
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: FLAC
Label: Worship the Dead
Websites: Bandcamp | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: July 10th, 2026
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