Départe - Failure, Subside

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good think ever dies"

- The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The above quote is a famous dialogue from arguably the greatest movie ever made. I personally don't adhere to the sentiment "hope is a good thing", to me hope is a mirage, a lie fed into gullible masses. The second law of thermodynamics states "entropy always increases with time" or in simple words "things only gets worse", that's what I believe in. Call me suborn, inconsolable or pessimistic, I don't mind but I've seen my life evolve around me. Tasmanian metal band Départe believes in hope but their music is a haze of unforgiving post metal dissonance.

"Awake, oh sleeper Shroud yourself in light

 Awake, awake, oh sleeper Shroud yourself in light"

Failure, Subside has lyrics with heavy christian undertones, it is not preachy holier-than-thou kind of exhorting but they are bluntly optimistic and uplifting. In a sea of nihilistic blasphemous extreme metal bands, this is a welcome change but Départe with their music can scare a vast majority of those bands away. Their sound borrows heavily from the Ulcerate palette but they paint colors of grey on a post-metal canvas and this means they are far removed from the Alcest/Deafheaven camp of shimmering oceans and tranquil winds. This is atmospheric black metal of visceral dread until you start reading the lyrics, the entire 50 minutes is all about this unresolved paradox.

"Forgive me, Father
 I am but a thread, unraveling
 Lost unto the air
I am undone
I am undone"

Seas of Glass starts things off with an ominous built up in a funeral doom tempo until it fades into Ashes in Bloom, where things gets faster and chaotic. Eerie melodies takes birth and grow on your right ear and the clean vocals comes in with a strong Deftones vibe, sounding like a less adventurous Chino Moreno. At the song's later half it all calms down with ringing clean guitar chords with the man behind the kit waiting to explode and it does on Wither.

Four minutes into Wither the soothing voice singing "Forgive me father..." calms the air around from which it builds up into a mournful riff. Grief Echoes (Golden Scars) stars of like an Ulcerate song with some Jamie Saint Merat inspired drumming and a huge helping of the sense of unease that the Kwis are famous for. However at the song's midsection they go for Zhrine-esque shimmery chord voicings, bringing down the tempo, giving the vocals all the space for it to express. After the almost empty interlude of creepy noises and cymbal washings, Vessel lurches through with some double bass rolls that almost always stops abruptly. The song reaches its climax with an uplifting chord change followed by the album's most empowering lyric.

"Come oh wind, oh breath of life

still these waves that seek to drown me  

My voice will rise above these looming mountains
these towering pillars of  loss and defeat"

         

Ruins opens with a female spoken word sample with tension building, the opening has a lingering dread around, as if someone played a suspended chord and is too suborn to change it. Insistent blast beats and desperate vocals gives way to cleanly plucked notes and lightly strummed chords and from there a distorted melodic motif comes to life along with the scream "Saturate me..". It dies into clean reverbed strains, blending and fading away into thin air as the record comes to a halt.

     

The production aids to the whole experience, the kit sounds powerful with a real thump in the kick drum. When the double bass rolls comes in, it feels like a torrent of rocks falling over you and the base has a real presence, even taking limelight in the songs Vessel and Ruins. The vocals are given ample space in the mix and it does make use of that space to express Départe's earnest lyrics. 

If I am pressed to say a complaint it would be the way the album is split. I feel naming the 7 songs as "parts" or movements like the Batushka debut would have made the record more intimate and seamless as it wont allow the song titles to bring some preconceived notions. The songs do blend into each other and the start and end of songs seems to get blurred if you are not keeping track which again gives credence to the idea of "parts" as opposed to song titles.

It is strange to start off 2019 with an album released in 2016, in fact I was about to review the Gorgon album released a week before. However as I am writing this I know for sure that I won't be able to do justice for an epic symphonic blackend death metal album in my crestfallen days. It seems natural and sincere to write about a record that echos the same feelings that I am going through right now. 

So did this record change my mind ? I am still skeptical about the idea of hope, all I can say for now is that Départe did their best. Allow me to wither in solitude, let the sun dry my petals of love.

"Come and shine bright, light of the divine

Saturate me"   

LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT

Départe   Ulcerate   Zhrine

        Deftones      

  

The 7 Greatest Metal Albums of 2018

What should I write ? This little cave I created is desolate. The blog has gone even deeper into the depths of obscurity that even I forget to even open it. I rolled the stone and went inside, cobwebs and dusts, it seems to get unconformable when I disturbed its mundane existence. I am bound by my own vows and I will keep this alive no matter how hard it pleads to allow time to putrefy its persistence.

2018 was the year I got to know more about myself. I can say it is the year that gave me a glimpse of a better tomorrow. I don't know how will this statement hold in retrospect few years down the line but 2018 was the year that made me dream again, made me fall into the very same fissure that closed upon me 6 years ago. However the older and wiser myself was prepared, he knows from his thickened skin the dangers of sleepwalking a dream. 

I expected 2018 to be a quite year personally and for the most part it didn't disappoint, surprises were few and far between but those few were quite stark and it did make a lasting impression. Last year I made a wonderful friend with whom I can share anything and she would listen which was a big thing for me considering how cold and austere I've become over the years. Then of course this blog, the present incarnation of Elnaz.

2018 was a fantastic year for heavy metal and I discovered more albums last year than the years before put together. Many big names in metal released their albums, some of them were disappointing, some did what they always do and some ventured further artistically. The year saw lot of great debuts and some career defining albums by lesser known acts. The metal blogsphere have been churning out lists after lists in recognition of these feats and I am kind of late to the party but then I was never invited to that party in the first place. There is high probability (about 93.4%) that this list will never be read by anyone so it is pointless to say things like "tastes are highly subjective, it varies person to person and in my case it varies time to time but these are the albums that struck with me throughout the year" for no one cares. 

I personally want 2018 to be remembered for these 7 albums. Maybe 50 years down the line I may read this and think how naive I was back in the day.

7. Shining - X - Varg Utan Flock 

Shining does everything that I want from heavy music. I want my music to be heavy, melancholic and most importantly authentic. Niklas Kvarforth has this uncanny way of making his music seem serious and his lyrics genuinely self-destructive. Varg Utan Flock is arguably his best work since Halmstad and the album almost feels like a twin brother to the 2007 masterpiece that showed his face a decade later.

The lyrics can be a bit juvenile at times but it is in Swedish and I never bother to check the translation. This record came way back in January and it has never left my phone. It grows on you and it puts you in a shroud of hopelessness.    

6. Carpe Noctem - Vitrun

Black metal has come a long way. It has seen itself growing from simple tremolo picking runs over blast beats to a more ambitious form of music and art form. However Carpe Noctem does what every good black metal band should, it scares you and it makes you feel guilty.

Atonal riffs, ambient noises, string scraping and passages of building tension. The only thing that is more scary is the latest Imperial Triumphant record but even that had comforting factor as its lyrics were based on a concept that is relatable.

No other record has put me in a state of  disquietude than this one and I explained the horrors in detail in my review.      

5. Alice In Chains - Rainier Fog

Alice in Chains is one of my favorite bands of all time and they have a discography to be proud off. Rainier Fog is another jewel in their crown, they simply cannot make a bad album. The third album of the post-Layne Staley era and the band seems to have made an album that can stand proudly next to their classics. In true Alice in Chains fashion the music is melancholic, occasionally sinister and of course there is the trade mark harmonized vocals of DuVall and Cantrell.

The surprise was the last song, the Led Zeppelin-esque slow balled All I Am. The first time I heard it, I knew it was special and it is my song of the year.   

4. Sulphur Aeon - The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos

There is nothing more to be said about this album or the band. I wonder if there is a more revered and universally acclaimed death metal band than Sulphur Aeon. The band deserves every praise written about them. This album is atmospheric without the synths, chloral chants or orchestra. All those mammoth riffs, pummeling drumming, emotional growls and the newly incorporated clean vocals add to something that is much bigger than the sum of those individual elements.

Everything here sounds larger than life, Sulphur Aeon writes some of the greatest death metal riffs on a consistent basis. Thats all it takes to make a great metal record.        

 

3. Tribulation – Down Below

When I wrote my review about this album I called it "the quintessential night album" and that pretty much describes what Down Below is about. Tribulation ventured further a way from their Swedish death metal roots and has become something more interesting and mysterious. Hooks are aplenty and the leads are infectious, even a small story-line runs through the album tying the songs down. The 45 minute run-time and the charming retro production makes it even better for a full length listening experience. 

It will be interesting to see where the band takes this sound in their next outing, for now it is a perfect blend of goth rock and death metal.

         

2. Firtan - Okeanos

This album didn't get much love in the metal blogsphere. They have their reasons and they are entitled to their opinions. I liked this record from the moment I first heard it and I waxed lyrical about it in my review. The album is energetic, free flowing and there is a sense of spontaneity to every musical idea explored  by Firtan. 

I concluded my review saying "Firtan through Okeanos delivered a black metal album that I always wanted, the one that meanders, the one that sails to blurred horizons but still finds a way back home." If other less enthusiastic reviews made you to ignore this album, now is the time to amend. 

    

1. Barús - Drowned

I made no secrets of my love of this French band in my review. Drowned is probably the most important work of heavy music released this year. In the review I wrote

"Barús sounds like a grainy coarse Neurosis album build over a technical groove laden Meshuggah base with an Ulcerate's ear for visceral soundscapes hovering along with the ominous dirges and diverse vocals of Triptykon" 

Meshuggah and Ulcerate are the cornerstones of modern heavy metal and Barús somehow took the best elements of both and made a record that sounds original and inspired. This is hands down the best record of 2018.      

   

Honorable Mentions

1914 - The Blind Leading the Blind

Obscura - Diluvium

Funeral Mist - Hekatomb

Outre - Hollow Earth

Psycroptic - As The Kingdom Drowns

Eneferens - The Bleakness of Our Constant

Kissin' Dynamite - Ecstasy

Barren Earth - A Complex of Cages

Song of the year

Alice In Chains - All I am