Style: dissonant death metal, progressive death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ulcerate, Gojira, Gorguts
Country: Finland
Release date: 4 October 2024
Released just under two years ago, Devenial Verdict’s Ash Blind enraptured me upon first listen. Having already listened to the singles countless times, I knew what to expect from the full release, yet the album still hit me with such force, raw fervor, and dissonant sophistication that I couldn’t help but dub it a 9/10 and place it atop lists come year’s end. To this day, I stand by that score, so when Devenial Verdict announced their sophomore release Blessing of Despair, once again featuring gorgeous artwork by Mariusz Lewandowski, along with the lead single “I Have Become the Sun,” to say I was excited would be an understatement.
Off the rip, Blessing of Despair sounds a lot like the Devenial Verdict we’ve come to know and love. The lyrics are concise and enunciated. The riffs have that sense of unfathomability signature to dissonant death metal. And despite their heft, the drums and bass are light on their feet, quick to shift from punctuative and authoritative pounding to simple backbeats that serve to highlight the immense amount of harmonic and dissonant information thrown at the listener. Where Ash Blind took this formula and often found itself in extended exploratory passages, Blessing of Despair instead keeps its feet on the ground, solidifying a formidable sense of groove across tracks like “Garden of Eyes” and “Solus,” the latter of which’s pull-off based riffage went so far as to remind me of the groove metal tendencies of bands like Gojira.
Thankfully, Devenial Verdict still finds ways to create the psychedelic and exploratory intrigue that I found so addicting on Ash Blind; more often than not, that exploration comes during the guitar solos. The solo of “I Have Become the Sun” for instance perfectly eschews the monotony of the song’s strophic structure and makes the return to the chorus that comes after that much more engaging. Additionally, the use of stereo delay on the lead guitar creates an addicting texture best experienced with headphones when layered atop its accompanying blast beats. The solos in “Moon-Starved” and “Solus” follow suit, featuring luscious harmonized lead work completely unexpected in dissodeath and truly catchy motif work respectively.
Unfortunately, not all of Blessing of Despair’s experimentation pays off. The title track, for instance, takes great risk in deploying several non-standard (at least in the realm of metal) drum beats that I’d argue prevent the track from ever settling into a groove. On an album where groove seems to have been the top priority, a track that fails to ever find its footing comes off not as a feature but as a flaw. Additionally, I fail to see the point behind certain tracks. For one, the inclusion of the interlude track “Shunned Wander” comes off as entirely pointless in an album with such variance in dynamic levels within single songs. And the closer, “A Curse Made Flesh” completely fails to deliver any of the elements that made any of the previous tracks great, instead delivering a funeral march of a finale, a drastic shift from the ripper “World Breaker” that closed out Ash Blind.
It’s a shame to compare Blessing of Despair to its predecessor Ash Blind so regularly, but when two albums are so tonally similar yet each seem so have had a completely different ethos underpinning their creation, comparison is warranted; and I just find myself liking Ash Blind more. No moment on Blessing of Despair is truly bad by any means; many moments even speak to greatness, the solos in particular, but the marked shift towards groove simply does not pan out across the entire album. To some Blessing of Despair will be a welcome evolution on the sound Devenial Verdict harnessed on Ash Blind, but I can’t help but feel it falls short of its potential.
Recommended tracks: I Have Become the Sun, Moon-Starved, Solus
You may also like: Replicant, Veilburner, Dysgnostic
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Transcending Obscurity – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Devenial Verdict is:
– Riku Saressalo (vocals)
– Sebastian Frigren (guitars)
– Okko Tolvanen (drums)
– Antti Poutanen (bass)
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