Location: Perth
Country: Australia
Genre: Depressive gothic black metal
Full length: Unveiling the Palest Truth
Format: Digital album, compact disc
Label: Immortal Frost Productions
Release date: September 22, 2023
Deadspace was formed in 2014 as a DSBM band, gradually incorporating more gothic elements into their repertoire. In their latest work, "Unveiling the Palest Truth," they make extensive use of both methodologies in a way you won't forget.
The opening intro, "Enter the Valley of the Dead," appears to invite the reader to do exactly that. It's a repetitive keyboard progression accompanied by guitar effects and distant drum beats that create an atmosphere of decaying trees and rotting tombs, leading to a centuries old prophecy about mankind's destruction. Emerging from this is a style of black metal with lurid, inhospitable overtones that really get inside your head.
The distorted quality of Déhà's mixing and mastering at Opus Magnum Studios (Brussels) is like a thick fog filling your mind as much as your immediate surroundings. Moreover, it assiduously takes its time to convey this atmosphere to you, presenting it in a gradual rather than expeditious manner. It reminds me in some ways of the slow burn of John Carpenter's movie "Prince of Darkness" where the malevolent force patiently builds until it becomes too large to handle.
The discordant, tremulous guitars slice through the fog like a rusty blade. As they overlap and oscillate between rhythm and lead sequences like freezing water dripping from black icicles, they create a feeling of disequilibrium, causing you to feel as if you are floating in the ether, unable to tell which way is up. With the bass providing a counterpoint to the guitars, grounding you in decay and deterioration, the bedeviled vocals evoke the massive distress of an antediluvian soul passing from the netherworld to the world of the living. The drums do their part adding to this conflation, interspersing blast beats, double bass and dirge beats with sudden ejaculations to dispense additional shock when it’s not expected.
Combined, these elements form a whole that touches every physical sense in addition to being something to experience. Despite it clocking in at about 23 minutes, it feels much longer and gives both your consciousness and psyche one hell of a workout. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Chris Gebauer: Vocals
Thomas Major: Guitars
Dan Jackson: Guitars
Dez Sogutluoglu: Bass
Herb Bennetts: Drums
Track list:
1. Enter the Valley of the Dead
2. Within his Wretched Tomb
3. Dwell in Desdemona
4. Unveiling the Palest Truth
5. A Feast for the Rats
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