Devenial Verdict presents its sophomore album.
Active in Finland since 2006, the band presented demos and EPs before working on their first full-length. In 2024, Riku Saressalo (vocals), Okko Tolvanen (drums, Spiteborn, Rätäk), Sebastian Frigren (guitar, Dirt, Nuclear Omnicide, Rätäk) and Antti Poutanen (bass, Church of the Dead, ex-Hooded Menace) are ready to offer us Blessing of Despair, on Transcending Obscurity Records.
Oppression doesn’t waste a single second, taking over from I Have Become the Sun, where the dissonant rhythm follows the initial breath, welcoming powerful screams coupled with a frantic or pachydermic rhythm. The band surprises us with an eerie soaring clean-sounding break, but the quietude obviously doesn’t last, and we’re confronted with a new surge that leads us to the equally aggressive Garden of Eyes and its crushing groove. The composition remains very jerky and doesn’t hesitate to make use of screeching harmonics while remaining catchy, but Moon-Starved isn’t far away and develops an eerie atmosphere by anchoring itself in darkness thanks to shifting riffs, even allowing a gentle pause before the final, which leads to Blessing of Despair and its strange tones. Some passages are clearly disquieting, while others surprise us with their complexity and liveliness as well as their constancy, but the musicians give us a moment’s respite with Shunned Wander, where a gentle intoxicating melody is at work, before being tarnished by The Quietus and its saturation that would weigh down any serenade. Still, there are a few misty moments that easily become abrasive, before the sound takes on more martial tones on the energetic Solus, whose initial fury is later contained in more majestic elements, then fully unleashed by convoluted complexity. A new episode of appeasement with the opening moments of Counting Silence, but as you’d expect, it’s crushed by the band’s suffocating influences, but occasionally survives thanks to Prog influences, before once again being crowded out by strength. The track finally gives way to Cold Lantern, with its hauntingly repetitive atmosphere that makes for a tortured lullaby as unexpected as it is ideal, and is followed by A Curse Made Flesh, which is certainly anguishing but quite haunting on its first half, then adorns itself with its usual saturation while retaining its slow side that makes it fade away naturally.
Devenial Verdict is a very versatile band, moving effortlessly from devastating rage to heady slowness. Blessing of Despair also features a large number of pauses, allowing us to digest the complexity of the tracks and better appreciate them.
85/100
