Deuil
To Die and Grieve in Belgium
Review + Stream

DEUIL – To Die and Grieve in Belgium

One of the most fascinating aspects about classic black metal has always been and will always be the hypnotic and reduced approach to writing songs. Over the years, a lot of technical bands threw in their own version of this type of music. For me, the original approach was always the most appealing. As traditional as this sound is are the topics death and dying. These eponymous entities fueled great art, concepts, and visions. Deuil from Belgium took these traditional facets and incorporate it into their contemporary take on what black metal sounds like in 2013.

Deuil is the French word for “mourning”, explains band member Nicolas. The band from Belgium started in early 2012 and went through various line-up changes before they recorded their debut Acceptance/Rebuild live twice. “[…] we wanted to restore the atmosphere you can easily lose when you record every instrument separately” he describes their recording process. A first recording was done without a bass track in January of this year in their rehearsal room. The band played a few shows, sold the tracks as a CD-R, and got a lot of positive feedback from people all over the globe. When asked to release the songs as a proper record, they decided to re-record the songs with a bass player and in a studio. The result are two massive sounding tracks with a duration of almost 30 minutes. It will see a release on tape and vinyl soon through 11 labels (!!!) in total. Nicolas describes this rather unusual move like this: “It was really important to us to collaborate with many people whom we like and that really care for what we do.” You can already stream and download the tracks for free from their Bandcamp.

“Acceptance” and “Rebuild” are the last two stages of a mourning process people go through who lost a loved one. The band tried to capture these overwhelming feelings in sound and art. “Acceptance” starts out with a ritualistic chant and breaks into a slow and heavy riff. This sees balanced repetition in an almost Celtic Frost kind of way. After the song breaks into noise the band starts a blasting part worthy of an early Altar Of Plagues record. This carries the song almost until the end. The last three minutes see a a flow of melodic and delayed chords in the way Deafheaven uses it: hypnotic, dramatic, and capturing.

“Rebuild” yet again starts with a chant. The first two of the eight minutes carry this chant under a wall of noise and textures. Four minutes in, a trance like revision of the great melody builds up towards the end to find and equinox in a blasting and voluminous finale to the song. Speed shifts a few times and harmonies change. The melodies are always really well composed and the vocals flow, layered nicely, reduced in the background to add up to the feel of the songs.

All in all, one could think “this is what everybody does now”. It just might be, but Deuil are really good at what they do. The songwriting is really strong and mature for such a young band. Be sure to get the songs and score a copy of the record. It’s definitely a band to keep an eye on, as there is likely to be more great stuff coming.

wearedeuil@gmail.com

deuil.bandcamp.com

deuil.bigcartel.com

facebook.com/wearedeuil