Review: Hands of Despair – Well of the Disquieted

Style: Death Metal, Progressive Metal, Black Metal (mixed, English/French vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Enslaved, heavier Gojira, Edge of Sanity
Review by: Sam
Country: Quebec, Canada
Release date: 6 April, 2018

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally included in the April 2018 edition of The Progressive Subway. If you think the writing’s amateurish – that’s because it was. I didn’t even make the website yet when I wrote this. I later wrote a review on Metal-Archives that’s much better which you can read here.]

HOLY SHIT I CAN FINALLY WRITE ABOUT THIS ALBUM, WHAT DO I DO? ERROR ERROR ERROR u/sam1oq.exe HAS STOPPED WORKING, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEND A CRASH REPORT??!!

Sorry I had to let that out for a second. I am, as you might have guessed, (at least) decently excited to write about this record. When I say these underground searches have yielded some of my favorite bands, this is always the first band that I think about. Hands of Despair are fuc-king phenomenal, no other way to put it. When I say Well of the Disquieted is one of my all-time favorite albums, I sure as hell mean it. As you might have guessed, this review will be heavily biased, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

So where do I start talking about this record? Honestly, I have no idea. Hands of Despair simply nailed every category. So maybe just go over them one by one? That seems like a good idea.

First of all the songwriting is insanely good. This album is a whooping 77 minutes long, yet all that length flies by like it was only 60. There are 8 songs, of which the first three are parts of one overlapping 20 minute song called “L’invasion”. So actually, there are only 6 songs with an average length just shy of 13 minutes. If that doesn’t scream “prog” to you idk what does.

There are many aspects which makes their songwriting so memorable. First, the compositions are thoroughly engaging, knowing when (and how) to build and when to climax, but also when to just smash you in the face with an amazing riff. Like Opeth, Hands of Despair easily transition their music from calm clean sections to intense extreme metal parts. However, unlike Opeth, they also incorporate black metal into the intenser parts instead of just death metal. And it’s precisely their mix of black and death metal that makes them stand out from the Swedish masters (and other established acts like Enslaved or Ne Obliviscaris). In the song Doppelganger (which is my favorite btw) there’s even a black/death metal vocal duet at some point, interchanging piercing shrieks and deep growls from hell. How cool is that? And the cleans aren’t lackluster either. MacDermott’s singing has a lovely melancholic quality that goes very well with the rest of the music. They nailed the vocal performance on all accounts. Then there’s also the drummer who is an octopus. He’s not a 1k bpm blast beat machine, but the speed and precision at which he makes use of his entire kit while at the same time not sacrificing anything in feel and groove is breath taking.

One of the main differences I always notice between these underground prog metal bands I listen to and larger bands that already made waves on the scene are the production values. Often times it just sounds off. There’s always at least one (if not every) aspect in the soundscape that doesn’t sound the way it should. Not with Hands of Despair. Lord, not with them. It’s on the contrary even: Well of the Disquieted is a masterclass in how you should produce an album. The riffs sound massive, the vocals have room to do their thing without overtaking anything else, the drums sound lovely and even the bass is audible. But what’s most important is that it sounds cohesive. No element in the mix stands out disproportionately. The riffs crush you when they need to, the growls will consume you with power, the occasional synths will stand out just enough to give that eerie atmosphere, etc. Whoever mixed this did an incredible job. Production-wise this is the best album in this series by a landslide.

So, overall… let’s just say that this is good, ok? Well of the Disquieted is a mammoth of an album. This is a genre-defining classic. I can safely say that this is, and will be, my favorite album of 2018, and maybe even this entire decade. Yes, it’s simply that good. Why these guys are virtually unknown yet is beyond me. They deserve every inch of fame they get. I sincerely hope that, by the time their next album comes out I won’t have to review it for this series anymore because they’ve gotten too popular. Do no longer ponder on whether Opeth will ever growl again, because this band will fill greatly fill that need for some time to come. Also take a look at their previous two albums, they’re exceptional as Well…

Recommended tracks: Doppelganger, Amok, Body and Souls
You may also like: An Abstract Illusion (bandcamp), Disillusion, Obsidian Kingdom (bandcamp), more Hands of Despair
Final verdict: 11/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Hands of Despair is:
– Jeff Mott (vocals)
– Maxime Côté (guitars)
– Alexandre Primeau (guitars)
– Fx Jodoin (bass)
– Étienne Gallo (drums)