Label - Church Road Records
Release Date - 24th November 2023
Words- Chris Fletcher
“I wanted to explore the long-term effects of Thatcherite Neoliberalism and the slow-burning disaster they’ve caused for people here” - this comment is certainly one way to sell people on your new record, and the mission statement of post-black metal band Underdark. Returning with their second album Managed Decline, the Nottingham-based purveyors of darkness are looking to continue the forging of their own unique identity that they started with their debut album in 2021.
Centralised around the thrice generational, post-industrial experience that the residents of a Midlands town have endured across the years, the album is seven tracks of immersive and thought-provoking music that blends black metal and post-metal to an impressively cohesive degree.
The LP opens with a gentle, almost scene-setting intro which is both fitting for the story-like nature of the album but also at odds with the music to follow. First track proper, ‘Managed Decline I (1st April 1988)’ lyrically tries to paint the picture of the town and its troubles, whilst sonically it is a crushingly heavy slab of blackened post-metal that offers various changes of pace, and leaves you immediately wanting to know where the story goes. From here we go into the second track ‘Employment’, which deals with death, alcoholism and mine closures in appropriately bleak fashion.
Skipping ahead to track six and potential album highlight ‘Enterprise’, we see the mix of black metal and post-metal at its most cohesive. Mixed together seamlessly to show a band who are fully in control of their craft and managing to form a perfect marriage of crushingly heavy music and equally weighty subject matter, the track will doubtless leave a lasting impression on anybody who gives this the time it deserves.
It is safe to say that this is not easy listening - and nor is it intended to be. This is dark and depressing but also real and resonates on a deeper level just as the band set out to do. Though sonically different and more immersive in its style, the subject matter is akin to the most recent album by Ashenspire, and if Underdark continues this trajectory then this is definitely a band that we will all be hearing more and more about in future.
8/10.
Comentarios