Although no duelling banjos here there are plenty of aspects making French band Deliverance a very interesting addition to LADLO’s roster. Its their 3rd album and first time I have encountered them. They made an entrance with EP ‘Doomsday, Please’ in 2013 and since then have delivered ‘CHRST’ and ‘Holocaust 26:1-46,’ giving plenty of clues that they are at ills with this screwed up world of ours. Here we have a backdrop continuing themes of urbanisation, modern day living in isolation, destruction, chaos and self-destruction. It’s set musically to a backdrop of black metal but there’s so much more going on including sludge, doom and psychedelia. Let’s dip in to what is guaranteed to be a bit of an uncomfortable ride.

The 62-minutes of music batters straight in with ‘Salvation Needs A Gun’ giving a vibe of bruising misanthropy and hatred straight from the off. Vocals from Memories Of A Dead Man artist Pierre Duneau are throaty raw rasps sandpapered and rough and the music drives away on a battering salvo of drums. What is interesting however are the keyboards (also down to Pierre) that punctuate the music with an errant and somewhat avant-garde eclecticism and some sinister atmospheric breaks into gloom and doom. No escaping from the hopelessness of the situation though and the words “I will kill myself, I am done’ and the hollered wretched repeated curse ‘Life is a plague” bring the negativity in spades. This is DSBM with some serious grooves and melodicism. The vileness of humanity and its greedy self-survival instincts are continued on ‘Venereal.’ The parasitic nature given no quarter expressively, helped no end due to the fact they are both provided in the accompanying booklet and that they are versed in English. There’s a spot of retro keyboard action during this slower diatribe and it’s all very intriguing. I am getting some sense musically after a few plays and if anyone this reminds me of the bleak world summoned by Italy’s Forgotten Tomb and it should definitely appeal to “haters” of their similarly ill world.

Deliverance takes us down strange paths though and do not stick to one sound. Take the 18-minute sprawl of ‘Odyssey’ for example, 1 of 2 lengthy numbers here. It’s chilled at first, almost Floydian in places and drums and synth are left to mesmerise with vocals cleanly coming in and giving things are real harmonic flow. There’s a huge sense of space in the song with time concentrated on individual elements be it a croaky voice or guitar strum as it all ultimately builds up into a doom-laden morass. It’s weird and out-there, baroque organ sound joins the fractured and unhinged mind at its heart and it gives the impression of a junk-sick illness and decay of the world we shuffle around in like zombies. ‘Up-Tight’ is an exercise in moodiness and pessimism as guitars slowly churn over a landscape where “we are doomed, we are the dregs.” A sudden break leaves a mournful organ fugue summoning the very funeral of mankind prior to the scabrous blackness driving back in, two fingers stuck in the air via its vitriolic melody. This continues into ‘Neon Chaos’ a rabble-rousing call to arms with futuristic sounding vocal patches and a feel of utter decimation and annihilation. If you want a quick “fix” it’s a more immediate song but the band are not done with playing with our heads cue, the 17-minute closer ‘Fragments Of A Diary From Hell.’ All I’m going to say about this one is that the psyche elements really take over and we get a piece inspired by Kraut / space rock as much as anything else and a post-apocalyptic track for end-times like some strange bastard hybrid between Oranssi Pazuzu & Dodheimsgard!

Essentially this is a fantastic forward-thinking piece of work. Highly ambitious but immaculately composed. I kind of realised this on first listen and further plays have left me suitably addicted. All hail these “kings of suicide” at the following links.

(9/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/deliveranceband

https://ladlo.bandcamp.com/album/neon-chaos-in-a-junk-sick-dawn