Day: April 3, 2017

If I were to be asked today which is the best of all the musical projects that involve the multifaceted Déhà I would have a lot of difficulty in answering, since at least four or five of them express levels of quality often unattainable for many. Imber Luminis is, among all, also one of those that receive more attention from the most enterprising labels: in this case is the Naturmacht of Robert Brockmann to secure the services of the brilliant Belgian musician. Nausea is the third full length for Imber Luminis in a discography that also includes several releases of reduced length, such as the previous Veiled, where Déhà had made use of the vocal assistance of his long-time partner Daniel Neagoe (Eye Of Solitude, Clouds), while here he returns to operate in perfect solitude, except for contributions at the lyrical level including that of the Romanian musician himself, Benjamin Schmälzlein (Todesstoss) and Pim Van Dijk (Façade). The union between music and lyrics is perfect in this work that, right from the title, recalls Sartre’s most famous work, and the characteristic depressive imprint is on the one hand exasperated while, on the other, it’s sublimated through splendid melodic openings of a post-metal matrix, without neglecting that funereal aura deriving from doom pulses. The result is a work capable of leaving an indelible mark, in which the pain of living and the pain become almost physical without, however, the sounds are pushed to excessively extreme drifts; in some ways, in fact, Nausea is the most accessible work among those released under the name Imber Luminis, especially in its final stages more post metal oriented (Nothing Matters and even more I Resign). Nausea opens immediately with the irresistible melodic crescendo of Starting With The End, the song that without mediation opens the doors that lead to the existential chasms dug in a soul of superior sensitivity: a track that brings to school decades of depressive black, where the scream of Déhà is desperate but not ungainly, marrying perfectly with the painful atmosphere enhanced by a production that facilitates the assimilation. But the prodigy occurs, perhaps, precisely because the genre is in fact transfigured by the endless background of the Belgian musician, and those who know well his tireless work can find fragments that lead back to each of his projects, all enslaved to the creation of a musical monument erected to the awareness of the futility of existence. The album flows without interruptions, since each track is linked to the other and this increases, if possible, the involvement of the listener, who in these fifty minutes is really immersed in the ideal musical transposition of Sartre’s philosophical thought. The work is a succession of moments in which the paroxysm of black blends with poignant melodic lines (magnificent the ten minutes of The Withering/Meningless) that make the concept of melancholy to perfection (not by chance this was the title initially chosen by Sartre for his novel). To immerse oneself in the work of Déhà is right and necessary for anyone who listens to genres that are the antithesis of everything that is defined as fun (in its most futile meaning): the constant search for deep and exciting notes here finds its natural landing place, providing the right nourishment to the restless souls that wander ravenously through the maze of underground metal in search of something that can satiate them. After all, this is the kind of music that can be appreciated only by those who have a depth that sometimes makes life more difficult, pushing to ask those questions to which often there is no answer or that, if there is, perhaps it would have been better not to know.
Nausea is Existence revealing itself – and it is not a pretty sight, Existence…

2017 – Naturmacht Productions