Amongst the usual stuff I think about, recently there has been the question as to what we actually mean by extreme metal. I wonder because it seems to have been reduced to “has been known to use ‘death’ vocals.” In other words it is shorthand for ‘not mainstream’. Case in point: extreme progressive metal band De Profundis.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (in which case, push off, this is my rock) the name at least of UK band De Profundis will be familiar to you. Probably also their gigging and recording (this being their third full length) will have crept across your path at some point too, as they certainly have the work ethic. To add that they have talent is being too mild. Technically highly proficient, they play a brand of complex, shifting progressive metal that I guess will always provoke comparisons to Opeth. A fair comparison too, rather than a lazy one. After the sombre intro of From The Depths, we get flung in at the deep end with Delirium. It’s a fair cantering tune, too, with effortlessly fluid and engaging lead breaks flying over a driven riff. There are the fine varied death vocals from Craig Land and some serious Nick Tingle drum battery, but pull those two things out of the mix and you will see that things are nowhere near as heavy as they seem. The riff is a good, melodic flutter of notes, shared by Roman Subbotin and Soikot Sengupta but hardly death metal and it drops into a lilting reverie lead by some sweet and tricky bass notes by Arran McSporan before riding back up into the tempestuous finale. None of this is criticism, merely how I find it. A fine, head nodding song it is too with meticulous but not emotionally sterile playing.

Songs are long but never overly so or laboured and everything genuinely flows, albeit with all the twists and turns of an underground stream. I never get a sense of passages being dropped in without thought and those sinuous musical turns are never jarring. If you’re waiting for a ‘ but….’ then you’ll be waiting a long time. Songs of the quality of the superb Release, or Silent Gods, have no real downside if prog metal is something you have even the smallest soft spot for. Nor do the guys ever let it lapse into ‘look at us, we can get all technical on your ass’ type noodling even though they live and breathe complexity.

To pick at it a bit, some of the clean vocals need a bit more work as they drop the odd note and neither was I totally convinced by the jazz piano and the other jazz touches which poke their head up here and there but they are not to distracting. Yes, to these ears at least there is a heavy debt to Opeth with just the odd pinch of the bleakness of My Dying Bride maybe, but frankly rather them than some Kerrang TV emo band and they are still several streets and a long bus ride away from being clones of either.
If you don’t believe me just check out compelling closer Unbroken (A Morbid Embrace) and just allow out sweeping you away in gothic romance and bass driven prog turbulence that is as beautifully composed as any classical work and you will just want to smile so hard. It is rather magnificent.
Does the world need another prog metal band? Well if Opeth’s last album and this is anything to go by, then yes. De Profundis have, with The Emptiness Within, stepped up to be counted and this should be snapped up by any fan of progressive metal, extreme or otherwise.

(8/10 Gizmo)

http://www.deprofundistheband.com