Deprived of Light - Colored Death (2011)

'Colored Death' is the debut EP from Deprived of Light, a two piece band from the south of France which features Lord Trowe (The Foetal Mind) and Psychotic (Psychocalypse). Musically these two create what to me sounds not entirely too distant from The Foetal Mind's recent venture into the post metal/rock world with his, 'The Grand Contraction' album, although the major difference being that four of the seven songs here have melodic death-ish styled vocals as well as some obvious metal influences in general.

I think what I really enjoy about this EP is just the whole atmosphere around it. At times it sounds a little melancholic at others its totally epic, here and there its a bit aggressive and quite often I sense this sort of inner longing from the music, almost like a lost soul trying to find his place in this world. There's also a bit of genre hopping since the intro & interlude are acoustic pieces, while the outro shows some electronic influences. Psychotic handles the vocals and they come in the form of a raspy squeal but on a few of the songs there are some cleanly sung parts which sound just fantastic, especially during, 'Cast into the Shade,' which I'd say is the EP's highlight.

All in all quite good, technical and melodic and generally just excellent material from these two guys. The only negative thing I could say is that I wish the production could have been stronger and I'm inclined to think that the extreme vocals might bother some people, but I guess it just depends on the listeners personal tastes. In any case I'm curious to hear more from this partnership soon.

As bonus tracks this release also contains three songs from Lord Trowe's own The Foetal Mind as well as two songs from Psychocalypse. The Foetal Mind tracks were originally downloadable only tracks which were only available to those that bought the last album, but I guess they were to good to use in that manner alone. This is definitely the case since these three songs are right in line with the, 'The Grand Contraction' and just for the sake of saying it, 'My Metal Ways I' is absolutely breathtaking!

Psychocalypse on the other hand is fairly standard melodic death metal. You know the drill; hard growled vocals, catchy riffs and melodic solos and as you might have guessed its pretty good too.

The album itself has not been released in any physical form and as far as I know there's probably no plans to do so, but for the curious you can download this entire release from Hypnotic Dirge Records FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE.

The Foetal Mind - The Grand Contraction (2010)

Beginning life as a lo-fi bedroom depressive black metal band, The Foetal Mind of Perpignan, Languedoc-Roussillon, France issued five demos between '07-'09 before inking a deal with Canadian label Hypnotic Dirge Records and issuing their debut, 'Suprême Cheminement' in late December of '09. The debut contained many of the typical characteristics found in depressive black metal and was ultimately a very boring record for me.


This late December 14th, 2010 release titled, 'The Grand Contraction' however is surprisingly quite different in style, in fact they've shed almost all of their past characteristics in favor of something quite rich, refreshing and at last something that's absolutely memorable.

Largely the work of one, Lord Trowe as he plays all instruments (with the exception of a guest drum programmer & vocalist) and writes all the music, The Grand Contraction sees the project moving in a highly melodic and mostly instrumental direction. With the exception of the second song, 'Big Crunch,' which is a more black metal driven piece (and the only song with vocals), the remainder of the album is a entirely instrumental and the results are fantastic.

I can't say for sure but a lot of these songs sound as if they've been inspired by Agalloch as it reminds me of a lot of the instrumental parts found on their albums, 'The Mantle' & 'Ashes Against the Grain,' while other portions of this album give a kind nod to post rock music and of course portions of this album still retain the dark depressive doomy black style of the bands past, though certainly refined.

What really stands out is that the songs have varying tempos and moods and some songs tend to fully develop over the course of several minutes. I much enjoy the way some songs start out slowly with atmospheric synths or slow guitar work and gradually build up to epic territories or become chaotic with a blink of the eye just to return to calmer melodic sounds in the end. The mood often shifts between sounding hopelessly depressing to optimistic, dreamy, evil, threatening or to a more dark mysterious sort of sound which brings to mind some of Akira Yamaoka's work on the Silent Hill soundtracks, which I pick up on songs like, 'Silence' & 'Instrumental.'

Lord Trowe has obviously been practicing extensively since the last album because some of these riffs and solos are absolutely colossal in their delivery. In particular I just adore, 'The Collapse' since it has everything I mentioned above through out its six minute duration, while, 'Nobody' has a lot of what makes this album so grand too. It's all about melody and mood and this guy pulled it off flawlessly this time around. I'm fairly certain that once you hear this album you'll be enthralled with what you hear coming out of your speakers and you'll be playing these songs over and over again with such melodic and catchy riffs as well as the brilliant solos.

It surely will be interesting to see where this band goes from here especially if the compositions grow in length and they remain instrumental The Foetal Mind could very well be a huge name in the French metal scene in the near future. As for now I absolutely recommend checking this album and artist out and supporting this great record called, 'The Grand Contraction.'