I love DSBM; I find lots of this invitingly-tagged “depressive suicidal black metal” to be strangely calming… it annihilates everything external to it, in single-minded commitment to endless, inescapable dreariness in either morose melancholy, or in desperate shrieks drowning in corrosive chemicals. Distraction risks cheerfulness! Destroy!
As with a lot of other radically extended or otherwise extreme metal-derived music, DSBM has to be judged according to slightly displaced criteria. Like with earlier black metal, a scuzzy bedroom-recording sound aesthetic is a sonic version of high-contrast photocopy visual style, both of fit perfectly with the cassette as medium. Rather than technical skill or flashy virtuosity, what matters in the playing is the conveying—and crucially, sustaining for long periods—of a despairing atmosphere, with exactly the right balance between sombre monotony and subtle variation. Like large canvas JMW Turner storms and shipwrecks… or a long, dismal train ride in an empty carriage…
Across three-track, 36-minute album Enjoy of Deep Sadness, one man Italian depressive black metal band Vardan masterfully evokes these and a whole other palette of shades of grey, fog, slate, ash… The previously mentioned balance between consistency and small change is affected competently, with the two layers of rusty-nail guitar at the front of opener ‘A Broken Existence’ keeping the riff moving onwards until the DSBM-trademark despondent drums begin their mournful count. Vocals are, again, in the classic style of the subgenre, growling and shrieking, submerged in the encompassing fog with just enough reverb to suggest that dispersal of the body has already begun. There’s some nice bass work too, little runs presaging the re-emergence of the vocals or the riff, though none of it risks appearing too eager to please.
After a piercing feedback intro, the title track next lumbers onwards in the same vein, making slow progress on heavy and misshapen wheels, with some weightless, abandoned freefall sections before the interminable rhythm locks you back in. I think I detect a slightly more ethereal treatment of the vocal, which feels like the tenuous connection to the world has become just a tiny bit more distant. This is taken another step on the final 12 and a half minute smudge of charcoal, appropriately titled ‘An Abstract Voice’, where the smoked growls and helpless yelps are slipping away further still. The semi-clean strumming, melancholic arpeggios, faded distortion background, and endless, endless cycles are very much in keeping with subgenre standards- but this isn’t about a snappy new twist, it’s about exploring and extending the introspective aggression of an established template.
You might appreciate this album. That’s a matter of complete indifference. You might love depressive black metal. It doesn’t care about you.
