As someone who isn’t generally a fan of staying in the same genre for too long, I’ve ended up reviewing a lot of black metal albums lately. Which is fine in a lot of ways – it is one of my favourite genres for a reason after all – but when you’re reviewing, sticking with the same genre for too long can start to feel repetitive. After all, there’s only so much heavily Darkthrone-influenced deathy black metal you can review before you start repeating yourself. But intriguing black metal albums will keep appearing on the weekly press list, so what’s a girl to do?
Honestly, when I realised I’d set myself up to review another black metal album so soon after Tsjuder and Plague God, I was ever so slightly annoyed with myself. But then I listened to Irreversible, and let’s just say that’s…unlikely to be anywhere near as much of an issue as I feared. Because while a lot of the black metal I’ve reviewed since joining Ave Noctum earlier this year has been fairly stolid, reliable old-school fare, Deitus are an entirely different kettle of fish. Everything I can find about this album insists that it’s straight black metal, and pretty well done at that, which frankly makes me want to check, double check, triple check and quadruple check that I’m actually listening to the right album here. Don’t get me wrong, there’s black in here somewhere, but it’s not the primary genre at play here. There’s a lot of thrash and death here, even some melodic death/post/doom elements further in, but at most I’d describe it as gently blackened. There’s some buzz and scuzz, and the lyrical themes are fairly on point, but none of the other elements I’d expect from a regular black metal album.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike it – I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time listening to it, trying to work out what the hell’s going on here, and I’ve enjoyed doing so, but I’m really struggling to match this album up to the description I’ve got. And not even necessarily in a bad way – there’s so much going on here, and so much of it is really good, that shoehorning it into any one genre feels a bit off, and even if I did want to try and fit Deitus into a neat little box, black metal would be the box I’d pick. There’s an argument of sorts for melodic black with other influences (including, but not limited to, death, doom, post and thrash), but even that doesn’t fully encapsulate what’s actually going on here. It’s “black metal” Jim, but not as we know it.
First out of the gate is Incursion, a suitably menacing instrumental that has a dense, oppressive nature that could almost be described as doom, with a lumbering melody that crashes about over a very tight rhythm section. From there, Straight For Your Throat is aptly named, with Cookie Monster™ vocals over fast-moving musical chaos that sits somewhere between the faster end of death and straight up thrash. Also there are fast, brutal guitar solos, which isn’t something black metal is generally known for in my experience, and the same goes for the twangy melodic guitar work just past the halfway mark, which is frankly closer to power metal than anything black. A Scar For Serenity quite literally thrashes itself into being, with more growly vocals, and some remarkably…bouncy? guitar passages that are a lot of fun, but only serve to reinforce that I have no idea what this album is trying to do. Irreversible continues in much the same vein, with a melodic death/thrash/power mix that will ultimately dominate this album, but is a cut above the previous two tracks, and my favourite so far. Voyeur is where Irreversible hurtles round a hairpin turn and lands solidly in post-something territory, with languidly haunting female vocals oozing over some sort of post-black/rock hybrid, that sounds not unlike Maybeshewill meets Årabrot, with some heavier doomy elements. It’s a bizarre hodge-podge of influences, but somehow it works, and I love it. I reviewed a post-doom album by The River recently (Hollow Full of Hope), and the combination of delicate vocals over a crushing wall of sound on display in Voyeur has far more similarities than you might expect. The female vocals (expertly done by Toni Coe-Brooker) continue on As Long as They Fear, cooing around the harsh vocals, which is unexpected but effective. This almost brings the disparate elements together, but it doesn’t last long before the earlier sound is back in full force.
So, where’s the black metal (as we know it or otherwise)? The short answer is, I’m not actually sure. It’s a good album, but I’m still not sold on filing it away under black metal in any straight sense. This might be partly to do with the fact that I have reviewed two very very straight black metal albums recently (Plague God and Tsjuder), where influences from outside the central genre were basically non-existent (apart from a few deathy riffs as per a lot of the best old-school black metal), so moving on to an album that covers multiple genres and has more diverse influences than you can shake a growly stick at, is a difficult shift. But even considering that, I can’t make the black metal label stick.
Basically, if you’re coming to Deitus looking for black metal in the traditional sense, you’re likely to leave disappointed. However, if you’re interested in what happens when you mix death, thrash and a few stray post/doom influences, use them to make some suitably grim and menacing soundscapes, throw in a bit of black buzz and the occasional slightly over the top guitar solo, what can I say? I cannot stress enough how fine you will be with this album. Because ultimately, while pinning down the exact genre/hybrid is far more difficult than it has any business being, the album as a whole does work. Not in the way I expected it to, given the press description, but it does work nonetheless, and while it has confused the hell out of me (and thus been a bugger to review, frankly) I have very much enjoyed it, and will almost certainly listen to it again – especially Irreversible and Voyeur.
(8/10 Ellie)
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