Wrote it in English. Published it in German. Now Bringing it home.
When I write my reviews for Stormbringer.at, I usually do them in English.
Because that’s how my brain works. My notes are in English. My thoughts are in English.
And then I spend a ridiculous amount of time translating it all back into German—
which makes no sense, because it could’ve been German to begin with.
Don’t ask. It’s a mess. I’m a mess.
Anyway.
I wrote a review for Déhà’s Nethermost & Absolute Comfort. In German.
And the original English version? Never saw the light of day.
But I grew really attached to this album. Like, emotionally-invested, scream-into-the-void attached.
And I felt the need to share the original words as well.
And plant them firmly in my Keepers section.
Because hell—if any album deserves to be there, it’s this one.
So here we go.
Here’s the original shit.
Enjoy.
"This album isn’t music in the traditional sense.
It’s a confrontation.
A maelstrom of pain and despair.
A piece that isn’t simply heard—it has to be endured.
Nethermost & Absolute Comfort is a monument to funeral doom: heavy, suffocating, unrelenting.
72 minutes. Two tracks.
That says it all.
You’ve got to commit to this one.
Ready?
Nethermost – 44:48 minutes in the abyss
Nearly 45 minutes of darkness.
There’s no gentle introduction, no easing in.
Just an endless pull that slowly wraps itself around you.
There are no classic song structures here.
No breathers.
No “here comes the hook,” no “now it gets interesting.”
Nethermost is a whirlpool of frequencies and layers.
Slow.
Droning.
Unbearably heavy.
Not carried by melody, but by sheer, overwhelming density.
A low-frequency, never-ending wave of sound rolls through the room.
Déhà’s voice starts deep, but still vaguely human.
Then the growls begin—low, resonant, droning.
It no longer sounds like a voice,
but something rising slowly from the depths,
claiming space.
The guitars?
They play the same motif. Again and again.
Like a mantra designed to grind your thoughts into dust.
The drums?
They only come in where they’re needed.
Not a single hit wasted.
No unnecessary accents.
Everything is pure will.
Pure weight.
Then something shifts.
The vocals turn harsher, more desperate.
At some point, they’re almost clean—
a last attempt to break through the darkness.
A flicker of light—
and suddenly, the droning cuts out.
A lone bassline fumbles through the empty space.
A sparse guitar melody tries to carve a path.
In the background: static.
Uncomfortably close to the nerves.
This isn’t about harmony.
It’s about what this wall of sound does to you.
After twenty minutes, my brain—honestly—starts to resist.
It becomes physically exhausting.
Snippets of news flicker through the sonic sludge.
And few sounds are more unsettling in the current global climate.
Because news means unrest.
It means fear.
It means threat.
The words are incomprehensible—but the panic is real.
This is doom.
This is existential dread.
This is the reality for so many people.
For some, it’s war and chaos.
For others, it’s the paralysing helplessness of trying to endure the state of the world.
Fear for the future.
Fear for those who come after us.
The gnawing knowledge that our planet—and humanity—may already be doomed.
And Nethermost sounds exactly like those thoughts feel.
At the thirty-minute mark, there’s a moment of false salvation.
A guitar melody breaks through—so delicate it almost hurts.
A moment of warmth.
A trace of safety.
A brief breath.
And then—the screams.
The first time I heard them, they knocked the air out of me.
Goosebumps.
Every hair on my neck standing on end.
Toward the end—after nearly forty-five minutes of relentless droning—
I genuinely find myself wishing it would just stop.
The sound has become so overwhelming,
so all-consuming,
that it pushes everything else out of the room.
What’s left is pain.
And helplessness.
Absolute Comfort – 27:14 minutes of darkness that holds you close
Unlike Nethermost, the second track starts off almost tame.
The growls are deep, resonant—almost like shamanic chants that set your body vibrating.
But then it turns dark.
Dangerous.
The droning here is intense.
It works its way into your bones, winds your body up like a wire pulled too tight.
The vocals?
Unreal.
Raw, torn, all-encompassing.
And yet, Absolute Comfort hurts less.
It’s like descending into a pit of despair—
and just sitting down.
Something growls in the darkness around you,
but you stay.
Where else would you go?
Halfway through, the drums kick in.
Pounding. Driving. Unrelenting.
It feels like a heartbeat.
And for a moment—the only moment on the entire album—
I want to get up.
Arm myself.
Get ready to fight.
There’s momentum.
A push forward.
But it doesn’t last.
The track slips back into its familiar, droning structure.
And I stay seated.
In my dark little hole.
There’s another softer section.
Screams that tear everything open.
Pain, forged into sound.
And by the end, it doesn’t even hurt anymore.
My brain has surrendered and seems to say:
“Alright. Existential despair. I guess that’s just our thing now.”
The question remains: why do this to yourself?
Why go through this willingly?
Why dive into something like this at all?
Because not everything has to be pleasant.
Because there are feelings that don’t fit into everyday life—
too heavy to smile away, too real to ignore.
Some people can go through life without ever facing these abysses.
Others can’t.
Déhà takes those feelings—and pours them into sound.
And yes, what remains is pain.
Despair.
Destruction.
But it’s also a kind of liberation.
Because pain can take up space.
It can stretch.
It can finally breathe.
And then—maybe—it can go.
What you do with it—that’s up to you.
You can take this music in.
Reject it.
Grow from it.
Fall apart because of it.
My conclusion?
Nethermost & Absolute Comfort is another Déhà masterpiece.
It’s art.
Art that lets pain exist through sound—as raw and honest as you’ll find anywhere."