Four Seasons to a Depression

“Four Seasons of a Depression” is the fifth demo of Nocturnal Depression from France which was firstly released in cassette in 2006 and was re – released after a year by Sun & Moon in cd in 2007. Nocturnal Depression are already 8 years in music (2004) and they have created their own fans in underground level. Until now they have released 5 demos, 3 splits and 4 full length albums. Many releases for eight years of existence.

In this album which is consisted of four compositions, one for every season, the band drifts us in a music journey through depression. They parallel depression with the seasons of a year and starting by spring – sweet melancholy we escalate slowly to winter – violent, self destructive depression. The band is musically moving in slow depressive Black Metal with many Doom influences. In winter, what impressed me were the very fast, destructive riffs which reminded me of Marduk.

The guitars are mainly slow and technically good. The bass can’t be heard at all and every time it is heard, it is very dirty and noisy. The drums are very good, technical, fill the sound quite well. The vocals are violent harsh grunts that I would prefer them a little more expressive. The production is raw, almost primitive. Apart from the bass, every instrument and the vocals are in the correct level and that raw sound adds a weird brutality to the music. There were no lyrics in the copy that I have but I’m sure that they present lyrically that escalated intensity of depression. The most important disadvantage of the album I think is the tracks’ long duration which weary the listener a little and some boring passages and intros.

Generally the album has very good parts and it shows that Nocturnal Depression is a very promising band concerning dsBM. Maybe “Four Seasons of a Depression” didn’t impress me and in some parts it tired me, however it is a quite remarkable effort that I would definitely suggest it to their fans and to those how like slow – tempo dsBM. The rest of you who want to check them out, you’d better listen to one of their more recent albums.