Style: post-rock, post-metal (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: If These Trees Could Talk, We Lost the Sea, Cult of Luna, Lost in Kiev
Country: Spain
Release date: 13 March, 2024
The EP always feels like an inherently limiting format for post-metal simply due to the available runtime. Does twenty-eight minutes really leave enough space for each song to develop its signature build and release, or for the album as a whole to enthrall the audience with its slow, gentle soundscapes? Sure, the absolute top-tier artists can pull it off once in a while (Outrun the Sunlight’s Red Bird comes to mind), but for the average musician I think the format sets too great a challenge, demanding a level of concise and efficient songwriting that eludes most. The rest who try inevitably fall short, resulting instead in shallow, unconnected presentation and a handful of disappointing tracks. I’m sure this post-metal EP will be different though, right?
Unfortunately, Deriva’s quick little EP fits much of the disappointing mold above, but luckily it contains enough flair and cleverness to stand out just a bit. Setting up the conceptual theme centered around the four classical elements, “Ignis Ex Ciniere” opens with fire, and like capricious flame, it sets up two competing ideals for what kind of music Nona / Décima / Morta wants to display. The first, holding true to the platonic concept of post-rock, carries a sense of extremely careful and precise overlaid and interwoven elements, teasing the listener with tantalizing little tastes of strings and open, flowing soundscapes of light, reverberating guitar. This atmosphere suffuses the quiet moments of the album with intrigue, enticing the audience to listen more closely as though it were pulling their ear down to whisper into it. The other aspect, drawing from the benthic reaches of post-metal bands such as Cult of Luna and their weighty guitar features, casts its distorted shadow over the other components, hogging the spotlight. Each time the heavy, chugging style breaches the surface, its focus on rhythm over melody drowns out the intricate interplay set forth in the song’s quieter moments and sets the tracks’ development back to nearly nothing. These twin natures fight back and forth throughout Nona like a pair of rival siblings, each interfering with the other in their haste to stamp their own seal upon Deriva’s music.
The next track, “Aqua Vitae,” exhibits even more of that split temperament, with greater focus on the heavy and distorted rhythmic impacts. Only rarely does this track step back to create space for musical development and for the audience to absorb the atmosphere being built. The remaining two fare little better; “Lux Aeris” focuses much more heavily on its quiet development, taking advantage of being the longest track to build out several calming, peaceful sections, but still can’t quite hit the target of building a unified musical strain that rises and falls coherently, and “Mortuus Terra” takes us out on a low note with a whole six-and-a-half minutes of unremarkable, undeveloped instrumentals. While individual moments throughout the EP call to mind more compelling bits of post-metal, such as the opening of “Aqua Vitae” with its strong drumbeats and descending guitar line reminiscent of the aforementioned Outrun the Sunlight, such comparisons do Deriva no favors. These little flashes of reminiscence about other artists only deepen the contrast against this artist’s dubious handling of song structure and volume dynamics.
This refrain is beginning to feel very familiar, as Deriva’s shortcomings bear a close resemblance to concerns I addressed with both Midas Fall and Fall of Leviathan. In their efforts to construct a more melodic experience by showcasing guitar and string parts rather than leaning on the more characteristic post-metal mainstay of percussion, these bands have pulled the foundation out from under themselves and left no steady core to stand upon and build with. While Nona’s percussion parts acquit themselves well enough—indeed, all the musicians here demonstrate their individual musical talent—building the scaffolding from melody instruments instead of rhythm feels fragile and fleeting, too easily disrupted by tonal changes in the music which chase away all the careful building which came before, forcing the composition to rush onwards in order to fit further development within the EP’s already cramped runtime. A more solid percussion foundation might have been able to keep up a stronger compositional through-line in comparison.
Apparently all a guy has to do is complain once and then suddenly the underground release schedule for the next year is filled with post-metal of all shapes and sizes. What this ethereal feast brings in quantity, however, it can’t match in quality—and when working with EPs instead of LPs, that quantity isn’t even so great to begin with. Deriva have shown enough strength to be noteworthy and enough originality that I wouldn’t call them derivative, as much as those jokes practically write themselves. Constrained as they are by recording real estate, though, they haven’t shown their best side, and I know they could achieve far more if given the space to breathe.
Recommended tracks: Ignis Ex Ciniere, Lux Aeris
You may also like: Midas Fall, Fall of Leviathan, Outrun the Sunlight, Rosetta
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Independent
Deriva is:
– Muñi (guitars)
– Minchy (guitars)
– Javi (bass)
– Rory (drums)
With guests:
– Alicia Nurho (violin)
– Julio Martin (synths)
0 Comments