Review: Hebephrenique – Decathexis

Style: dissonant black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Ulcerate, Mare Cognitum
Country: Australia
Release date: 23 August 2025

Successful art—and by extension, music—elicits strong emotion. Who doesn’t love a song that invokes feelings of losing your inhibitions as you fall in love, being on cloud nine high as a kite, or even, gasp, heartbreak? The more vivid and expressive the emotion, the better the song. But you tell a non-metalhead in your life that you’re listening to a song because it makes you feel like you’re desperately gasping for air or like you’re storming the proximate village, and they balk at the prospect. On Hebephrenique’s debut LP Decathexis (after a phenomenal 2023 EP), the Aussie dissoblack trio seek to elicit Decathexis from us listeners.

For those of us who aren’t entrenched in the world of psychoanalysis, decathexis is, as Hebephrenique poetically articulate it, “the pathological severing of emotional investment.” That’s not exactly an easy sensation to capture sonically, but a band named after schizophrenia are the most likely to succeed. So how do they approach it? Well, like with every competent dissoblack album, Decathexis is dark, heavy, and unsettling, yet it achieves its disorienting effects via the incorporation of stunted melody. Decathexis is made entirely unpredictable through its slick mix of vicious riffs and sinister atmospheric sections, its disharmony between melody and dissonance.

Although brooding atmosphere is a key tenant of Hebephrenique’s sound—starting with the pulsating electronica of intro ambient piece “Stasis”—Decathexis is dominated by keeling riffs in intentionally gauche time signatures. In recurrent barrages of incalculable notes running across the fretboard, Decathexis is surprisingly active and fiery for something emblematic of derealization. And, as I said, the record is also quite melodic, frequently jumping from full-speed-ahead riffs into slower sections dominated by opulent lead guitars in stark contrast to the vicious Modernist dissonance of many of the deconstructed riffs. Hebephrenique even throw in some sweet harmonized heavy metal guitar parts, to boot (“Argumentum ad Baculum”). Another trick that Decathexis incorporates to imbue melody into a fundamentally amelodic style is by letting the bass have an equitable share of the mix, playing clacking, yet vibrant, lead melodies that only occasionally sync up with the guitar (“I, Adverse”). And, most memorably, midway through the finale (and title track), Hebephrenique strip back the music to a piano development, with a seamless transition from Modernism to Classical. 

Yet Decathexis is not as cutthroat as it ought to be. Rather than acerbically spewing whatever violent shrieks would suit the style best, the vocals on Decathexis are muffled, mixed quietly, and rather pedestrian. While the occasional flashes of melody throughout the existentially dreadful atmospheres are impeccably tasteful and create a disorienting sense of “what happens next,” I find that they inspire emotion rather than invoking feelings of clinical detachment. Musically, that’s all well and good, but the lack of bite, focus on riffiness, and abuse of melody hurt the record conceptually. Perhaps decathexis is still too unwieldy an emotion to capture sonically at this point in Hebephrenique’s discography. However, with some minor tweaks, Hebephrenique have what it takes to inspire whatever sinister, unsettling feeling they want in the future, and I look forward to basking in the disgusting feeling they attempt next.

Recommended tracks: I, Adverse; Argumentum Ad Baculum; Decathexis
You may also like: Rejoice! The Light Has Come, Convulsing, Sacrificial Vein, Dodecahedron, Thantifaxath, Thanatorean
Final verdict: 7/10

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Label: Gutter Prince Cabal – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Hebephrenique is:
– Vocals: Kris Wolf
– Drums: Leo Graae
– Guitar, Bass, Keys: Jack Greenhill