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