It can be difficult to keep up with the sheer output of music Belgian artist Déhà puts out on a yearly basis. In addition to contributions to bands like Wolvennest, Cult of Erinyes, Slow, Silver Knife, and many more, Déhà has also been putting out solo material since 2018 at a pace so fast that you could blink and miss some of it. Sometimes when you find a solo artist churning out releases physically and digitally at this pace it’s underbaked and all falls within one genre, but Déhà has spanned just about every style of metal, experimental, and darker/gothic rock while still giving listeners plenty to sink into. One of his more recent releases is a collaboration with Polish dark ambient artist Marla Van Horn, and the resulting album Earth And Her Decay proves to be just as unpredictable. Emphasizing periods of sweeping, cinematic instrumentation and bleak atmosphere that tugs at your heartstrings, this effort spans everything from post rock/metal, doom, and ambient while remaining stunning from beginning to end.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for with this album, as much of my experience with Déhà has been through his contributions to black metal bands or the ritual psychedelia of Wolvennest. Earth And Her Decay is a very different beast, and while Marla Van Horn comes from an ambient background that doesn’t mean that’s all you get here either. Opener “Purification Ritual” offers up the most ambient and drone leaning moments with stretched out chords and haunting ambiance that build up around Van Horn’s and Déhà’s voice, providing an ethereal and haunting soundscape that expand outwards over a few minutes. As the layers continue to build, the vocals switch over to rougher edged screaming and singing that provides a bit more depressive and somber feel that contrasts with the brightness of the instrumentation. It’s a bit more freeform compared to what follows, but immediately pulls you into the sweeping nature of what the album has to offer. From there the material regularly shifts between styles, sometimes coming through like a cross between dark ambient and post rock/metal, while other times settling on a funeral doom aesthetic. “Nowhere” starts off with a folk and dark ambient approach but builds up to crushing yet beautiful instrumentation that sounds closer to Jesu, while “Dust and Rain” brings in the extremity of doom. The shift between these haunting, ethereal tones and crushing weight of both Van Horn’s soaring voice and Déhà’s wide range of singing and screams/growls leaves a lasting impression.
As good as these first three tracks are, the run from “Black Blood” to the end of the album may be one of the most haunting things I’ve heard in months. “Black Blood” offers softer piano and strings that have a sense of immense emotional weight to them, which transitions into physical weight once the crushing funeral doom style guitar and drum work take over as spoken word towers above it. The remaining two tracks spread out into ten minute runs of pure emotion and cinematic soundscapes that feel like they have you under their spell for their entirety, and the way they get there ends up being completely different. “White Blood” sounds downright beautiful but in a genuinely sad way that makes you want to break down and cry, and it feels like it could easily fit in as the soundtrack for a number of different films. Here Déhà’s voice reaches towards the clouds, coming through as both sorrowful and triumphant at the same time until the halfway point where he breaks into a full-on scream with Van Horn’s ethereal singing backing him. The music itself incorporates gothic elements alongside doom and post rock, coming in with a sense of familiarity yet retaining uniqueness, and it’s the type of track that I hit repeat on several times after it came to an end. “Dead Leaves” proves just as stunning, utilizing Déhà and Van Horn equally in a duet that is eerie yet entrancing, all while the instrumentals plod forth with a mix between funeral doom and gothic doom. Early on in this song Déhà has a pitch that sounds remarkably close to Burton Bell, but by the end he’s transitioned over to an extremely guttural growl that wouldn’t sound out of place on an Evoken album.
It’s clear that this is a true collaboration between two artists, as this isn’t just a metal album with Van Horn’s ethereal vocals and flourishes of dark ambient instrumentation or vice versa. Instead, this is a thoroughly dark and emotional album that maintains a cinematic flair throughout and proves to be genuinely stunning and tear-jerking throughout. There are plenty of familiar elements that have been transformed into something that feels just a bit different, and whether you’ve heard any of Déhà’s extensive discography or not this is well worth checking out and a definite 2022 highlight for me. Earth And Her Decay is available from Burning World Records.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg
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