Despond
| Despond | ||||
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| Studio album by Loss | ||||
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Publication |
May 2011 |
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admission |
October to December 2010 |
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| Label (s) | Profound Lore Records | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
1:06:51 |
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Guests:
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Studio (s) |
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Despond ( English Despair / Despair ) is the debut album by the funeral doom band Loss .
Emergence
concept
The group, active since 2003, released a demo on Weird Truth Productions between 2004 and 2008, as well as a number of split releases . Meanwhile, work on the debut album dragged on. Singer and guitarist Mike Meacham said in an interview with the webzine Doom-Metal.com that the band members were burdened with personal problems that hampered the development process. Meacham cited "illness, death, addiction and substance abuse, and emotional problems" as such barriers.
The band and musicians referred to representatives of new music , jazz , metal as well as dark wave , neofolk , gothic rock , post-punk and post-industrial as common musical influences . The guitarist Tim Lewis and Meacham pointed out that the essential influence on their own music is based on a nihilistic and existentialist worldview.
Songwriting
The music was created in a cooperative writing and rehearsal process by the musicians. Meacham stated that the band, consisting of him and drummer Jay LeMaire, bassist John Anderson and further guitarist Tim Lewis wrote together as a unit with the intention of creating the most desolate, saddest music they are capable of together. Accordingly, he classified the obstacles in the creation process as a creatively worthwhile delay, as the group would never want to accelerate the creation of the music and "every bit of misery" that happened to the musicians contributed to the result.
Tim Lewis described Conceptual Funeralism unto the Final Act (of Being) and Cut Up, Depressed and Alone as pieces of music that significantly influenced the work process on Despond . While Conceptual Funeralism unto the Final Act (of Being) accompanied the band for years as an unfinished piece of music and the musicians tried to finish the piece, the fragments of Conceptual Funeralism unto the Final Act (of Being) brought in by Meacham changed the approach of the band as well as the mutual perception of the musicians as well as the entire work process sustainable.
“And when we finally finished Cut Up, Depressed and Alone, when we finally got a result, I remember walking out of the rehearsal room and feeling hideous, absolutely awful. We felt sick to each other. It wasn't that it necessarily felt wrong. Nobody was mad at the other. But it was an uncomfortable feeling to be around after that was written. This song was something to me that I knew we had something really special. It wasn't like anything I'd ever created before, not as a teenager with Thrash Metal , not in my late twenties with Death Metal . Having come up with this was definitely a decisive factor. "
In another interview, Lewis emphasized that the texts, which were mostly written by Meacham, and the fragments of the music that he set, served as the foundation of the further process. They found the music together as "paralyzing and painful". In particular, the authenticity with which Meacham contributed his part served the group as a catalyst for the process.
Album information
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The album, first released in 2011, contains ten separate tracks that have a total playing time of 1:06:51 hours. The album was re-released several times. The comic artist Richard Friend took over the graphic preparation of the accompanying material. At the time of recording and release, the band consisted of singer and guitarist Mike Meacham, drummer Jay LeMaire, bassist John Anderson and guitarist Tim Lewis.
publication
Despond was released on May 20, 2011 as a download by the band via the Bandcamp portal , as and on May 31 of the same year as a CD via Profound Lore Records and as a double LP via Contagion Releasing and Parasitic Records . In 2014, the LP format was re-released as well as an additional variant as an MC via Parasitic Records. The album was first released with ten separate tracks and a playing time of 1:06:51 hours. No changes were made to this extent of the album in later editions. Additional bonus material was not added either.
layout
The comic artist Richard Friend was responsible for the design of the accompanying material. The design is predominantly monochrome in black and white. Pictures were used as illustrations, the rooms in the style of an ink painting , inside of which there are deceased and obscure , morbid and occult references.
“[T] he black and white cover artwork captivates the eye of the listener and leaves a strong first impression. It not only has depth as a drawing, but also emphasizes it in detail; A rather obscure subject is also presented: an apparition on one's own deathbed in a room filled with staring portraits. "
style
The music presented by Loss on Despond is described by reviewers as " rueful dark" and "creeping" Funeral Doom and as "ultra- depressive Death Doom " with "extremely deep growling " in the tradition of Thergothon and Until Death Overtakes Me . The atmosphere conveyed on the album is titled with terms such as “grumpy” and “deeply depressed” through to suicidal and “total denial”. This mood is created by slowly played, deeply tuned and heavily distorted guitars that alternate with clear guitar interludes. The guitar playing focuses on Despond on a riffing described as "heavy and overwhelming" . Melodies carried by the guitars are less present, contrary to earlier releases. The band tends towards the opposite "to a harder, less melodic approach". The quality of the album would not lie in the sustained "ultra-slow riffing" but in those "melodies that are embedded in the songs in large quantities". According to a review written for the Webzine Angry Metal Guy, the music consists mainly of "excellent and painfully slow Doom riffs and almost ridiculously deep, guttural and absolutely incomprehensible death vocals." Meanwhile, the drumming seems softly muffled and calmly pulsating.
reception
Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann judged in a review written for Rock Hard that Despond has “its charm and is definitely the ideal record for excess melancholy two or three times a year, but more often you can't give yourself this total denial. “JJ Koczan assessed the effect of the album in a similar but positive way for the webzine The Obelisk. Despond stands out from all other releases in the genre through a complete hopelessness. In one for the French webzine Metal in Nightfall Earth, it is named as an absolute implication of its inherent message about music. The feeling of grief and depression would be used “not as a simple aesthetic means”, but as “felt and lived reality” tangible. Despond is to be understood as a "complete artistic success" who succeeds in forcing a "confrontation with one's own inner demons". Other reviews positively point out that Desond “would obviously not work for many”, “because it moves at an extremely slow pace” and appears downright “claustrophobically slow”. In retrospect, the album was discussed as a "classic of modern Doom Metal and a fundamental milestone in the rise of modern Funeral Doom".
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Lawrence Van Haecke: Interview with Loss. Doom-Metal.com, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ BrooklynVegan Staff: interview w / Loss (who released 'Despond', played Nashville). Brooklyn Vegan, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Islander: AN NCS INTERVIEW: LOSS. No Clean Singing, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Machine Music: Machine Music's Albums of the Decade an Interview with Loss. Machine Music, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b KwonVerge: Loss: Despond. Metalstorm, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c d Steel Druhm: Loss: Despond. Angry Metal Guy, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Captain: Loss: Despond. Your Last Rites, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Dominik Sonders: Loss: Despond. Doom-Metal.com, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Loss: Despond. Rock Hard, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ JJ Koczan: Loss: Despond. The Obelisk, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ LYRR: Loss: Despond. metal.nightfall.fr, accessed June 2, 2020 .