Pensées Nocturnes: Vacuum

The night is a time of grief, a time of uninhabited and awe-inspiring darkness.  Anguish and sorrow gush out around the edges of the night, dance around the darkness like children on a playground.  Apathy is nonexistent yet omnipresent; rain and wind roam freely beyond the bustle of banalities.  Pipes drip without recognition or care.  Cars pass without passengers or drivers.  Umbrellas and paper float peculiarly in the wind.  Stranded individuals glide upon the rain drenched sidewalks, never glancing at one another, never receiving or rewarding acknowledgement.  The night is a breathing entity that consumes; without prejudice, without thought.  Vacuum is an eloquent ode to the night, complementing its resilient and unforgiving complexion.  Resounding and renovating as it bounds melodies and sorrow to feverish rhythms and despondent vocals, grand hall piano interludes and sensual overtures riddle the album like calculated bullet holes.

Vacuum is an eclectic album, consisting of many different sounds and venues that the melodies pay homage to.  Predominantly, the album is driven by remorse and melancholy, but a lingering sense of permutation tinges the atmosphere throughout its entirety.  Vacuum is heavily inspired by the bleak yet endearing sounds of classical tunes, a minimalistic symphony for the desolate, morose individuals that berate existence.  Scattered throughout the album are piano interludes and classical instrumentation, both being utilized quite well, but not without their depreciation.  The opening track trembles in like a record, instantaneously sweeping us away with a string and piano-laden melody, yet just as quickly transitioning into the shrieking hate-filled fields of depressive black metal.  The black metal fragments of the album are just as the listener would expect.  Higher pitched vocals and resilient, overbearingly toxic riffs that ricochet off one another, bounce around the album sporadically and systematically, almost unnaturally.  The atmospheric segments that these bits collide with seem to be superficial paradigms, like sidewalk chalk in the rain they stand individual without support, yet when the rains begin to fall their value swiftly fades away.  It almost feels contrived the way some of it is incorporated.  It doesn’t seem to enhance the musical quality or the listeners tone, simply another unnoticed extra in some obscure foreign film.

The one stand out track that really irritated me, and ultimately brought about a change in thought, was Coup De Bleus.  I found it be the one track that really deprived me of understanding the entirety of the album.  Depressive black metal is an extremely variable genre subject to instantaneous and sweeping changes, like street lights from red to green it can change on a dime.  But in doing so, you put at risk the listeners overall textual feel of the album.  You risk removing them from the world and atmosphere you’ve so meticulously crafted, and quite possibly ruining the entire experience.  The opening three tracks of Vacuum are fantastic epitaphs of depressive black metal; layered and atmospheric, treacherous and dreary.  The instinctive flow of classical tunes and black metal riots clash and embrace in a soaring vacuum of isolation.  And then Coup De Bleus begins, and you begin to wonder if you haven’t been transported back to the 1930s, sitting in a gloomy cafe with intellects and men in suits.  The track has a heavy blues feel to it, almost optimistic and hopeful, like I want to order another coffee and snap my fingers along.  The track does pick back up into the depressive black metal arena, and it almost really does feel like a brand new song, but in that it loses its scope.  It’s too fragmented and impatient with itself, losing its direction too many times in a song removes the listener completely.  Other than this one stand out track, the rest of the songs feel at rest.  They tend to caress one another like Mozart or Beethoven would, certain distinct melodies appear to dance about in other tracks, making the entire album feel as though it is one instead of multiple.

Pensees Nocturnes’s debut album is one of many ideas, each taking two steps forward and one step backwards.  The classical bits are very well done, incorporated unconventionally into the music as stagnant bits of emotion, breathing deeply and exhaling throughout.  The albums bleeding melodies exude sorrow; weep down upon the entirety of the album like melting icicles atop a tin roof.  Depressive black metal is seen as a genre that’s stagnating, as more and more bands throw their material into a cannibalized genre, innovation is in dire need.  Bands like Pensees Nocturnes affirm that this stagnation isn’t as static as it seems, that renovation and innovation aren’t as distant as we believe.  Because even distance is relative, even hope is subjective, because the vaccination of existence is endowed within albums like these.  They inoculate each and every listener with despair and futility, slowly breeching through insecurities and dreams, past the drivel and nonsensical fragments of meaningless emotions and thoughts.  As you begin to reflect and ponder, reminisce and conceive, you realize existence has already passed you by.  And now you are here.  Now you are here.  Now you are here.

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