Depressive Winter eh, well we have certainly just had one of them and it must be said this is a great name for a band and I was surprised to see only one outfit had snagged it. Said act are a two piece from France with Nata-Ajra providing drums and Profane everything else. They have released one album ‘Llac Edicius’ in 2006 and this one apparently in 2012. It is one of those discs that I suspect the label put in with a newer one in the hope that we would still cover it and as it would have been downright rude not to that’s exactly what I am doing.
In case you had not guessed Depressive Winter are a black metal band and if you had thought with their name they were deepest darkest doom you would not have been alone as I did too.
But no this is not the case, although they are certainly in no way black metal by numbers. The first of three instrumentals ‘From The Depths’ starts things in a very intriguing fashion as some booming drums with echoing delay and eerie depressive guitars craft a great sense of atmosphere. ‘Voices’ batters in after the set up and boy does this have one hell of a beefy production, this really does get in your face with a huge pounding assault, gnarly vocals, galloping passages and thorny guitars. One thing that cannot be overlooked amongst the triumphant mood of the piece is the good sense of melody about it. Full charge, full blooded no prisoners taken; this is very much the shit! ‘Despair’ casts its pall in the form of another instrumental piece before another more epic number ‘Abyss’ drops in. There’s a slower but no less heavier cleave about it as it flexes rugged muscles and unleashes a bloodthirsty rasp. What makes this a little different is one hell of a fiery and flamboyant guitar solo, its long and it is over the top a bit certainly as far as anything black metal orientated is concerned but it is also quite sublime. Now the music has chilled and taken on a more traditional metal feel to it almost making you forget that this was previously fire and brimstone black metal. Intriguing to say the least. The ten minute ‘Post Mortem Celebration (they have a great skill of titles) speeds things up and has guttural and ugly vocals bringing a real sense of anger as it pillages its way through some furious blackened licks, having a much more steadfast and expected dynamic about it in the process. That is until it takes a depressive slower tone towards conclusion.
There are certainly some good ideas here and these include a cover of Canticle by Morgion (did someone mention deepest darkest doom) to wrap it up with. Looking at a couple of what seem to be abandoned Facebook pages not really sure what we can expect from this pair in the future but I certainly hope this is not the last I have heard of them
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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