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Review & Full EP Stream: Decasia, The Lord is Gone

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on May 4th, 2017 by JJ Koczan

decasia the lord is gone

[Click play above to stream Decasia’s The Lord is Gone EP in its entirety. It’s out tomorrow, May 5, on More Fuzz Records.]

Parisian heavy psych rockers Decasia make their first offering through countryman imprint More Fuzz Records with The Lord is Gone. Preceded by a pair of digital singles over the last year-plus, it’s also their second short release behind a 2015 self-titled (review here), though honestly, the thing is 33 minutes long and if you wanted to make the case for it as a three-song full-length, I don’t think I’d be inclined to argue. That was much the case with their last outing as well, though, and it stems as much from the flow the trio of guitarist/vocalist Maxime Richard, bassist Fabien Proust and drummer Geoffrey Riberry conjure across the two-sided salvo of extended pieces “Eden” (9:45), “Sun Kingdom” (9:25) and “The Ancient” (14:22), as about the runtime itself. Recorded analog, their material is pointedly organic in its construction and delivery, yet comes across as more than a simple collection of jams. No question that’s what’s at root — one can hear it from the opening roll and rumble of “Eden” as the guitar feedbacks its own introduction alongside — but Decasia are building songs from that foundation, not simply leaving parts to hit their listener in raw form succession, one after the next as whim dictates.

That’s not to take anything away from the sphere of European heavy psych jammers out there — there are many, and they do good work — just to say that Decasia are on a different trip, taking cues from coherent heavy psychedelic songcraft that holds true to a languid vibe as it makes its way into and through the verses of “Eden,” toying with drift and crunch in like measure, playing loud and quiet stretches off each other and letting the low end and the drums hold together instrumental passages that let the guitar wander into and out of leads or riff out as best fits where they are in the track. By the time RichardProust and Riberry are about five minutes in — there’s a break in “Eden” where Proust‘s gloriously fuzzed tone takes full hold; it’s not to be missed — the mood is set for much of what the release as a whole will move toward: a sound thick with presence but still bright in its overall feel, more validating than down, and with enough built-in motion that when Decasia decide it’s time to move into more shimmering territory momentarily or to start a build like that which leads into the apex of “Eden” before the track ends with a quiet final verse and last-second measure of push, they’re able to make these turns gracefully, without bringing the entirety of The Lord is Gone down on their own heads.

decasia

With a fading-in march of tom roll from Riberry, “Sun Kingdom” briefly teases a more intense thrust before nestling into another open, echoing verse. There is a more jagged feel as the track progresses, thanks to starts and stops in the riff, and the drums hold to some of their initial tension, but even when Decasia seem like they’re about to let “Sun Kingdom” completely boil over — first at around the 2:30 mark — they instead maintain their control and direct the song into a driven section of push-riffing that leads to a spacious psychedelic solo from Richard, brief but effective in adding to the atmosphere before the vocals resume. Then it’s time to get heavy. A stop and quick vocal line brings about a section of dense crash and thud, Proust‘s bass no less essential in thickening these proceedings than it was “Eden,” and when they make their return to the hook of “Sun Kingdom,” the attitude of the execution has changed, so that the contrast between the earthbound and the ethereal in the song — and make no mistake, those are the two sides playing out — is starker than on the opener, the track overall seeming less patient as it moves through its sixth minute, just waiting to take off again, which of course it does into a doomier roll at about 6:40, leading to another air-toned lead, a stop and then a surprising shift in tempo just past 7:45 that brings a faster ending section about that will consume the remaining runtime in a burst of energy that, as it turns out, is what all that back and forth was moving toward all along.

Because they sort of blindside the listener with that end part in “Sun Kingdom,” it’s a little more difficult to predict where Decasia might ultimately go with closer “The Ancient,” and that’s clearly the intent. As they weave their way through, the band effectively reinforce the atmosphere of the first two tracks through a consistency of approach and tone, but more over, they expand the scope as well, pushing the boundaries they’ve thus far established on both ends — the heavy and the psych. “The Ancient” is arguably the most of both. It doesn’t move as fast at its most forward as did the capstone movement of “Sun Kingdom,” but it hits a similar energy level circa four minutes in. Then it uses that as a launch-point to move into an ultra-liquefied psychedelic jam — broad minimalism the likes of which simply can’t be found anywhere else on The Lord is Gone; more patient than “Eden” and marked out by cymbal washes and echoing tom stomp from Riberry. They bring in an acoustic strum behind Richard‘s vocals and eventually make their way back toward electrified fare, returning to full-fuzz-push at 11:10 or so as “The Ancient” hits its crescendo and shifts back into its dream-toned, thoughtful last verse to end out on a sweet line of standalone guitar. All of that movement only stands to emphasize the fluidity Decasia accomplish throughout The Lord is Gone, which befitting the watery theme of their artwork does seem to be their greatest sonic asset — but I wouldn’t count out the progression of their songcraft either. The bottom line is that if they’re pitching these three tracks as an EP, one can only wonder what level of immersion awaits when they finally get around to a debut long-player.

Decasia in the studio for The Lord is Gone

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Decasia on Bandcamp

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