It seems somewhat negligent on our behalf not having seemed to have covered a Déhà release in the past. Since 2018 this Belgian whose real name is Olmo Lipani has well over 40 releases to his name, the majority of them being full-length albums. Seriously though, no label could possibly keep up with that output and its no surprise to see many of them are independent releases. Of course, this is before we even get to the 48 (according to Metal Archives) other acts, bands and projects he has been involved with past and present. Some of these have definitely been encountered such as Cult Of Erinyes, Wolvenest and We All Die Laughing and to say this guy is prolific would be a serious understatement. Still, we don’t have the time to go back and listen to past output, tempting as it would be on the strength of Decadanse, so this is what we are concentrating on.
What we have here are just two tracks but they are both over 20 minutes long and as for genre well it’s as “varied” as Metal Archives state, there are bits of everything here and as a listener you really need to prepare yourself to a shape-shifting land and a quite remarkable journey. As the Bandcamp link states “Well, it’s fucked up music” and that is something not to be disagreed on in the slightest.
Naturally this is music that builds up over the course of the epic runtime and ‘The Devil’s Science’ apart from by title dipping back into a Lars Von Trier, forest of doom, builds slowly and ponderously via stretched out notes and melodic tinkling keyboard. Low gruff funeral doom suited vocals emerge and growl away but don’t expect one-dimensionality to effect things here even though the template may fool you into thinking this is what you are going to get for the duration. Wretched blackened rasps spitefully emerge next and then literally BOOM Armageddon is unleashed via hyper-kinetic industrial black metal drumming and hell for leather guitar strafing, keyboards equally mental in the background. The sudden upping of the BPM here is quite unexpected and we have gone from one style to another and almost as fluidly back again; really wasn’t expecting that. Fans of Blacklodge, Dodheimsgard, Mysticum, Diabolicum et al should love both the schizophrenic nature of this as well as the pumped-up adrenaline rush it delivers before slipping back into cold mesmerising slow melodies. There are some fascinating spoken word parts moving to clean French verse that is hugely atmospheric until the next artillery bombardment. Vocals constantly change along with the mania of the music and whatever style Lipani adopts he excels at; the masterful clean soaring Solefald sounding swoops are particularly effective.
Having been blown away by this there is still the other track to contend with ‘I Am The Dead’ follows with barely time to grab a breath but it again starts slowly drawing you in to its depths. Its eerie at start, guitars glisten from the void and solemn chants melodiously intone, ever building and expanding like a mighty construction taking form. Lyrics are in French and English and are huge moving from croons to snarls and screams. You can follow them to some extent but things are yet to be fully unveiled after another absolute tempest of industrial sledgehammering obliterates the senses. Death is taken with the most utter respect and seriousness as the root of the narrative is unveiled by the chant of “Om Kali, Kali om Kali”. We are told to “shut up and let the goddess in, feel her power, the power of death” and what a destructive force it is. They say the devil has all the best tunes but the Hindu goddess of death has a few great ones to her name too and Déhà join an illustrious elite such as Aborym (we could not avoid mentioning them here) Shining Swe, Dissection and errr Kula Shaker. Seriously though this could be the best of them what with its surging drums which are sped to a blur, massive keyboard peels and the utter devotion to the goddess portrayed by the lyrics. The fantastic cover art by Popescu Oana Beatrice now makes more sense and so too does a sudden passage of mutant rave. Seriously though no mere words can do this track justice, you have to experience it at ear splitting volumes. This is absolutely phenomenal and “fucked up” as it is has blown me completely out the ballpark and then some.
This could be considered a masterwork although having not compared to the past mass of work I wonder how good everything else is. Hardly resting for a second since this opus Déhà have already released another album Averses on what I am assuming is the artists own label Musical Excrements. Once I have recovered from the latest play of Decadense it’s my next port of call via Bandcamp but put simply this is a staggering piece of dark artistry.
(9/10 Pete Woods)
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