Artist: Deadspace
Country: Austalia
Label: Immortal Frost Productions
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2023
Despite having been around since 2014 (albeit with a short break between 2020 and 2021) and already having a hefty discography, Australian black metal outfit Deadspace is a band that has largely remained under the radar with me. Even the respectable amount of allied bands and labels are largely unknown to me, so diving into this seventh full-length album provided me with considerable homework.
Although, full-length… at 23 minutes, ‘Unveiling The Palest Truth’ is a bit on the scrawny side, but as they always say: it’s not in the length, but what you do with it. Right? And what the band may lack in volume on this latest work it for the most part makes up for musically. Deadspace probably won’t go down in the books as the most impressive Australian Black Metal band, but at least it manages to put down a decent album.
Musically, we can find the band in the most dreary corners of the Black Metal genre, although it may not fit directly under the Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal lid, it does verge close to it. An uncomfortable sound that leans on a piercing atmosphere and repetitive riffs that manifest themselves in dissonant ways. The eerie ambience is further reinforced by the almost industrial/spacey production that, together with the spoken text passages, at times recall later Mayhem. Although the tempo is often a bit on the slow and lingering side, dynamics are also worked on, just listen to ‘Dwell In Desdemona’, for instance, where a couple of shatteringly fast pieces break the rut in a great way and, partly due to the vocals and repetitive nature of the music, are reminiscent of Mgła.
Admittedly, the crushing level of both Mayhem and Mgła is nowhere near repeated here, yet Deadspace feels like a welcome middle ground between the resentful Black Metal of the aforementioned two giants and the more individualistic Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal. Of this, the title track is perhaps the best example, here dissonant riffs, swirling drums and a wide range of terrifying vocals are deployed to create an oppressive whole that clamps down on the listener in a devastating stranglehold.
