Shivered – Chains Review
By Lavender Larcenist
Not much is more metal than having to put your life on the line to play the music you love. For Iranians, that is an everyday reality, forced to play underground or flee their home country for fear of persecution. Metal is considered blasphemous (hell yeah) in Iran, and the most famous example of a band suffering under these draconian laws is Confess. I imagine Mohammad Maki, the one-man band that is Shivered, has to struggle with these same challenges. A concept album focused on the end of humanity through collective mass suicide probably isn’t making anyone happy who takes umbrage with metal’s dark themes and brutal nature. But that is exactly what Maki has served up with a heaping helping of gothic doom, a little bit of death, and a whole lot of atmosphere. Under such strenuous circumstances, is Shivered able to deliver a concept album worth risking life and limb with Chains, or will it be doomed (heh) to solitary confinement?
While single-member bands are somewhat common in metal, Mohammad Maki is putting on a show with Shivered. Clean vocals, deathly howls, drumming, piano, bass, production, and guitar are all delivered by Maki, and outside of a couple of featured musicians and a few blemishes with some overly ambitious high notes that he can’t quite reach with his clean range, every element feels tight and polished. Even the production is properly cavernous, serving the haunting atmosphere that is pervasive throughout Chains. No matter what your opinion of the music is, Maki is clearly a talented and driven musician.
Talent aside, Chains is firmly rooted in the school of gothic death/doom purveyed by bands like Paradise Lost, but it leans into the clean side of things, with Maki delivering a majority of the vocals in a high-pitched, ghostly drone. This is likely where listeners will either stick with Chains or drop it entirely. Maki’s voice suits the material; his heavily accented, almost lullaby-esque singing adds to the ethereal ambience of this dark concept album, but a few notes prove too difficult, and at times his voice feels at its breaking point, like on “Human Parasite”. Despite these flawed moments, I found something alluring about Maki’s singing, and his odd pronunciation and unique sound grew on me with repeated listens, making even simple phrases into earworms in ways I didn’t expect entirely due to their delivery.
Chains does suffer from repetition, and while I like what Shivered is putting down, each track follows a similar formula. Grand doom riffs open the track and lead into melodic piano backings with spectral vocals. I kept wishing for Chains to let loose and put the foot on the gas, which it finally does towards the end of the album, which is the strongest part of the record. “Rebirth in Wrath” ends with an all-out death metal assault, and I wish Maki would lean into the harsh vocals more. “Hanging Bloom” features female vocalist Julie Orwell, and it turns the track into an epic duet between Maki and Orwell. I hope to see Orwell return, or even better, become a consistent member of Shivered. Maki and Orwell make for a great team between their different vocal styles, and he leans into the funeral doom with his rasping, harsh vocals on the track. Outside of a few tracks in the back half of the album, Chains doesn’t ever quite open up, but the album is consistent and satisfying across its fifty-two-minute runtime. It would be served by cutting five minutes from the album here and there, but no individual song is a weak point.
Chains is an album that immediately hooked me when I booted it up, but as it continued, it grew more formulaic. Surprisingly, the more I listened, the more I grew to enjoy what Maki was going for with this dour concept album. It may have grown predictable, but in the vein of many great metal bands, the one song that Shivered does; it does well. Chains is full of big riffs, some light Paradise Lost and Katatonia worship, and a heaping helping of atmosphere. The singular talent of Mohammad Maki grounds all of this. If you are on the hunt for some satisfying death/doom with a focus on melody, you can do much worse than Chains. Shivered is on the cusp of true greatness, and with a little bit of editing, the next album may break free.
Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: shivered.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/shivered
Releases Worldwide: November 2nd, 2025
#2025 #35 #Chains #DoomMetal #GothicDoom #IranianMetal #Katatonia #MelodicDeathDoom #Nov25 #ParadiseLost #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #Shivered
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