Deadwood – Picturing a Sense of Loss

February 14, 2014 • self-released

Trying to find decent black metal these days is an interesting game, especially on Bandcamp where half the bands listed as such don't have anything to do with the genre. But I've found a few good nuggets from this year so far, one of which is German band Deadwood's Picturing a Sense of Loss, one which finally satisfied my search for a little while.

Deadwood's style of black metal is definitely rooted in the modern post-blackgaze era, with big walls of blastbeats and layered, atmospheric guitar combined with a hefty sense of melodicism and fusion with softer, dramatic sections. The harder metal parts are a little evocative of the kind of stuff we were getting out of Europe in the late '90s: not particularly fancy, but definitely refined and well past its early raw state.

Deadwood does have a tendency to get a bit melodramatic, though, which can be construed as a good or bad thing depending on your taste. Their aforementioned highly-melodic guitar lines got to be a bit too much for me at times. And while their use of clean, post-rock sections was generally done well and in good taste, their use can result in the music getting a bit sappy at times, like halfway through the very first track and a few other song intros.

That being said, Deadwood does still manage to write some pretty great songs and pull together a fine album. I doubt it'll be particularly well-recognized among its peers this year, as there isn't quite enough about it that truly stands out, but I would still definitely recommend it.