Black Decades - Never A Word

Black Decades is a Utrecht-based post-black metal band. It was quite hard to name a genre for this band so I just went for post-black metal because for me there were the most elements that pointed to that genre. So Black Decades have been around (according to Metal-Archives) since 2012 and have been active eversince. After one full length and one demo, the latest release is a full length called ‘Never A Word’. The full length is free to download at the Bandcamp of Black Decades so there shouldn’t be a reason not to download this or even better, donate to the band. 

 

So the 6-track album ‘Never A Word’ is a genre-clusterfuck. The whole album is just jam packed with so many genres like doom/death but even though if I would describe the album’s genre it would be black metal, post-black metal to be sure. The unique elements of drastically slowing down the pace of the album to an almost doom-like tempo, should be considered post. A great example of another band that does this is Oathbreaker. They do like their tempo changes too. 

 

You can hear that the band draws a lot of inspiration from the Church Of Ra collective. Which really intrigued me even more because I like that collective a lot.  You can absolutely hear this influence in the second song ‘My Son’. It is by far the most melancholic song on the album. Yes, it has it’s hard/raw moments but the song really captures the whole emotional load that Black Decades is trying to put into this song. The whole vibe feels really soothing and familiar. 

 

The most memorable riff award goes to the opening guitar riff in ‘I Carve’. The riff has been stuck inside of my head for the last 2 days and I won’t expect that it will leave my head very soon. You can tell that ‘I Carve’ is the most memorable song of ‘Never A Word’. It is filled with black metal riffs that will haunt your head and not just only the black metal is memorable, also the death metal aspects in this song are very present. The demanding voice of (I believe Johan) really reminds me of the vocals you hear in nowadays modern old school death metal. It really fits the song and atmosphere that ‘I Carve’ creates.

 

‘Linger’ is more on the doom side of the spectrum. Filled with traditional aspects of the doom metal genre. From the first sprouts of doom to the insanely (droney) modern sprouts of doom metal. It does however have got some modern day old school death metal influences. Especially the vocals are very ‘Dark Descent’ like. 

 

Last song on the full length ‘Never A Word’ is the song ‘Husk’. This is how you end a full-length album. All of the genres you’ve heard on the previous songs are featured in ‘Husk’. From death metal to doom to post-black metal. You’ve got it all. Especially the last 1 ½ minutes are almost like a farewell or a ‘I-see-you-next-release’ kind of vibe.