Two years after the good debut A Discouraged Believer, the Germans Décembre Noir return, excellent interpreters of the melodic side of death doom. Speaking of that record I was inclined to predict the likely rise of the band from Erfurt, thanks to clues rather obvious as a knowledge of the subject matter combined with good ease shown in creating scores painful and robust at the same time. With Forsaken Earth the desired progression seems to have reached a point already quite high: Décembre Noir, perhaps, do not free themselves completely from their models (which today are perhaps more Swallow The Sun than Daylight Dies that emerged in the previous album) but the compositional skill and the atmosphere full of pathos put on the plate in favor of a talent from the top of the class. Just a greater focus on their goals is the keystone, in the form of a series of beautiful songs in which dominates unchallenged an elegant and touching lead guitar that takes the listener for a walk along this abandoned land, in which must be emphasized the nearly fifteen minutes of the masterpiece Waves Of Insomnia, a song that sees the German guys literally kissed by an inspiration that can equal at times that of the Finnish masters in their essential The Morning Never Came. Happy for once to have got a prediction right but, as they say in these cases, I like to win easy.

2016 – F.D.A. Records