The band was founded in 1995 as Raven by Jarno Salomaa (guitars, later also keyboards), Tomi Ullgrén (bass, later also guitars) and Toni "Otso" Mäensivu (drums, later also vocals) as a faster, instrumental black metal influenced band following the footsteps of their contemporaries like Strid, Burzum, Darkthrone and Unholy. The trio soon realized that the music they played was not as good as they would have wanted, lacking the atmosphere and emotion of the bands that influenced them. During the summer of 1995 Raven recorded their rehearsals with a simple cassette recorder, capturing all the songs that later became the Alone In The Mist demo, for the first time on tape. After listening to the rehearsal tape and realizing they actually had something in their hands they could stand behind, Raven wanted to record the tracks in a proper studio. It took the band three years to do it. Raven entered Arkki-studio in early 1998. They still had not tried any vocals until the very last minute, when they decided they wanted to test how the songs would sound with Mäensivu's vocals and were surprised how well they actually fit.
The Alone In The Mist demo[1] was not released until 2016, when the band thought it was the proper time to do it. They changed their name in September 1998 to Shape Of Despair. The decision to change the name came down to basically not wanting to be confused with the UK hard rock stalwarts Raven. They believed their new moniker fit their new sound better too.
In 2000 they signed a deal with Spikefarm Records and released their debut album Shades of...[1] with Samu Ruotsalainen on drums.
In 2005, the band released a compilation titled Shape of Despair, featuring rare and unreleased material from the group, including tracks from the band's first demo Alone in the Mist and a new song called Sleeping Murder, recorded over a four-day period at Sundicoop Studios in Savonlinna, Finland. After a 5-year lull the band released the EP Written in My Scars and a split EP with Before The Rain.
