Falke

Wow… the Détente team is still kicking… kudos for that although don’t expect any female presence this time. The diva Tiina Teal (later the death/thrashers Death Benefit), who sang on the fairly good reunion stint “Decline” ten years earlier, is gone and under the circumstances there’s no one else to fill in the huge god-fearless shoes of the one-and-only Dawn Crosby (R.I.P.).

The truth is that Détente is way more than just the mentioned departed vocalist as by-and-large this fluctuating, sporadically flickering saga has been carried by the bassist Steve Hochheiser and the guitar player Caleb Quinn who are in league once again, testing the waters first with the self-titled EP, an all-instrumental affair comprising three cuts one of which is the ubiquitous hyper-active instrumental “Catalepsy” from the debut, offered without any audible alterations. Yep, no vocals on that one, the guys not able to find a worthy female performer behind the mike… mentioning Catalepsy, this was also the name of the band that the two musicians formed once they departed from the Détente camp shortly after the debut’s release, with most of the material from this short lived (1986-89) spell served on the “History I” compilation a few years back.

The news is that the material presented on the EP reviewed here has almost nothing to do with the Détente style; it has nothing to do with the Catalepsy repertoire, either, which was pretty much direct energetic old school speed/thrash modelled after the father act. Depending on the taste, some may find this effort a total waste of time as it clings towards the weird alternative side of the metal spectre. Two of the tracks from the preceding EP are here again, but they have been vocalized… not by a girl, mind you; the guys haven’t been able to find another diva, and the mike has been handed to a dispassionate semi-declamatory punker who will never be selected to read Shakespeare in front of a crowd of devout English literature aficionados… that’s for sure.

But let’s get onto the music: we have an alternative grungy clumser titled “"Blood You Spill", a nervy but not very exciting dirge which flows into the much more vivid "Human Condition", a volatile thrash/crossover jump-arounder which abrasive not very focused riffage surely leaves something to be desired. Then we stumble onto “Seeds” spilt on the floor, those gestating a somewhat dark-ish post-punk/grungy vaudeville, think a disparate but still valid blend of Killing Joke and Alice in Chains; not a bad number this one, especially with the abrupt fast-paced skirmish thrown in towards the end. No such rude awakenings on “Fucked”, a weird outlandish, very minimalistic hypnotic tribute to the corrosive art of British abstracters like Amebix and Chrome, served with a mechanized industrial aura.

Hm… this is by no means the good old Détente, but is not a complete waste; one has to adjust his/her senses to this least expected transformation in order to savour more from it. However, one is never certain what will be thrown at him/her on every track; the stylistic meanderings may get on someone’s nerves, especially when not a single vestige of the guys’ older repertoire comes to play save, perhaps, for a few nuances from "Human Condition". Again, this all is too out there for the regular thrash metal fan who may as well abandon this charmingly dishevelled parade way before the end, looking in vain for the vintage Détente sound…

our two friends are evolving, no doubt; this evolution is on-going, and the way it seems to me it has no fascination with our favourite thrash. At this stage it does sound decent and listenable, but it all depends on what form their future jokes will take… as long as they don’t kill too many chain-clad Alices along the way, it should be fine.