I Walk the Life in Depression

I Walk the Life in Depression is a pretty decent affair. The emotional quality is top match despite it's many short comings and it manages to be quite an absorbing little release. The repetition though off putting at first, becomes pivotal in portraying the atmosphere and emotion Deep-pression aim to achieve. The overall tone of the song is very languid and exhausted. It carries with it a very depressed sound, it's very cold, very tired and very emotionally draining. The repetition works wonders in achieving this atmosphere. Creating a pure and earnest representation of the debilitating mental condition. I Walk the Life in Depression portrays depression in a very realistic manner. This isn't a glorification of the disorder, nay quite the opposite in face, it despairs at it. I Walk the Life in Depression sounds like the resultant output of people who have known nothing but depression. I wouldn't call this depressing music in the traditional sense, rather I think the term depressed suits it better. The reason I wouldn't call it depressing in the usual sense is simply for the reason that this music just sounds really depressed. It's worn out and tired, just how the mental disorder works its curse. I Walk the Life in Depression is one of those albums that requires the uppermost correct mindset to fully grasp what the artist has set out to achieve. For people who have never resided in the annals of depression then the artistic vision Deep-pression aim to recreate will be entirely lost in them. For those unfortunate to have experienced depression in its purest form, then I Walk the Life in Depression feels like a reunion with a long forgotten acquaintance, it reminds us fully of the mental exhaustion depression invokes.

To fully grasp Deep-pression is to have a powerful understanding of sadness in its most annihilating form. To bring about such an unrelenting and devastating atmosphere implies a lifetime spent in depression. The music feels far too honest to be merely put on for show. The emotion is painfully real, the atmosphere brutally effective. The screams provided by Trist are harrowing to say the least. They're very tortured and anguished sounding, carrying a heavy load of emotion to fully bring about the sorrow that these musicians have been burdened with. The overall minimalism of this track is by far the most important aspect of the track. It successfully creates a worn out and decrepit atmosphere. The minimalism is unforgiving, the atmosphere relentless, the overall tone is of pure despair and mental torment. I Walk the Life in Depression is very effective in representing the atmosphere of depression and that for me is its biggest selling point. Of course the minimalism is done to the highest possible extreme, there's virtually no variation present throughout the half an hour playing time. With the same riff and ambient backdrop being played constantly in a depressed cycle. The music feels never ending, the music creates constant waves of emotion that washes over the listener, purging out each and every last glimmer of hope embedded within their soul.

But of course the minimalism wouldn't be effective if the actual music wasn't any good. Thankfully however, Deep-pression know how to hold an atmosphere, The riffs never wear out their welcome, the ambiance never becomes lost on me. The quality of the music remains constant throughout, ensuring that the atmosphere never wears thin or becomes lost. Minimalism is often a hard aspect to get right, mainly because there's not much room to actually work with the concept. You're either good with it or you're not, well at least that's how I see it. I think minimalism works best when the music is able to remain emotionally engaging throughout, because if music doesn't capture your emotions in anyway then what's left? Not a whole lot to be fair. Deep-pression are very effective minimalist musicians, The atmosphere is utterly ensnaring, the fuzzy guitars create a powerful and emotional wall of sound. The vocals are seldom used and in my opinion that works in the bands favor. Over abundance of vocals within the depressive black metal scene almost never works. The best way to utilize them to their full affect is to perform them at pivotal moments, to add more depth and misery to the music. If vocals were constant throughout then the atmosphere would be lost. Maintaining a scarce presence helps to keep the misery and atmosphere powerful, ensuring that it never begins to grate on the nerves.

Of course, I Walk the Life in Depression is not absent of flaws. Most noticeably is the lack of drums and bass, it means that the music feels quite thin despite the powerful atmosphere and doesn't hold enough weight as it ideally should. There's no real drive behind the music, the lack of drums definitely responsible for this. The music feels lifeless, empty, there's no real power behind the composition. Just a lone guitar spruced up by occasional screams and a never ending wave of haunting ambiance. It's not the most interesting mix but it's pretty effective in creating a powerful atmosphere. I will admit that the lack of variation does allow a more powerful representation of depression, but looking at it from a strictly musical stand point it leaves a lot to be desired. It's structured far similar to ambient music than anything black metal related, there's no hatred or anger behind the music. Just a powerful sense of overarching depression. I Walk the Life in Depression works very well as an ambient album but not so much as a metal one. It's very well thought out mood music and is capable of creating a captivating and utterly engrossing listen despite the song writing issues. I wouldn't exactly recommend this album however because there's not much to actually enjoy. It is good however, in the vague sense of the word, it's very powerful and it's pretty hypnotic. It's pretty effective in numbing all those pesky little voices inside your head for half an hour, just keep in mind you'll probably feel cold and dead inside afterwards.

Coming into this album, I guess I expected too much from it. After all, amongst fans of DSBM Trist's own band seems to be kind of a big deal, and after reading the reviews already on the site, maybe I was expecting for this to still my very heart, stop it’s useless beating dead in it’s tracks. I am not familiar with his releases with it, though, but will definately check it out when the opportunity presents itself. This though isn’t exactly comparable to the usual depressive suicidal black metal offerings, mainly because this dabbles more in the black ambient side of the playing field. One might draw comparisons to Nortt’s later releases Ligfaerd and Galgenfrist.

At first glance/listen, this just sounds immensely boring, one-dimensional droning with tortured screams thrown in for good measure. Song doesn’t seem to go anywhere, the guitars play the same riffs over and over again, keyboard lines evoke some generic gloominess with its ominous, sighing humming background noise, which rises to the forefront for the last ten minutes or so, before finally fading away to black infinities beyond. Overall, first listens didn’t exactly blow my mind nor did they leave that certain itch, the desire to play it again.

But perhaps I was missing the point here? In case the very point of this release is to paint a picture of a life spent in depression, as the title certainly insinuates, the point and picture is exceptionally well made. We get it, you are depressed. Your life isn’t going anywhere, everything just seems drab, pointless. Each and every time you wake up in the morning, you ask yourself, “Why? Why I keep on doing this? Why do I keep living this life?” Which sums up this release, in my opinion. The droning approach to guitarwork and repeating synth lines evoke this feeling of uselessness, of failure and wasted time. In case RH- and Trist wished to achieve to paint an audial landscape of depression, consider this a job well done. A bit too well done, perhaps, as it gets a bit boring after ten minutes or so, for the mood of the song or the composition doesn’t change the least. If shortened to a third of it’s duration and released as an 7”, I certainly would have given a higher score.

Trist's vocals however are a high point of this record. His vocals, like anguished wailing of lost souls beyond the void or a of a man buried alive, realising one's situation, are apt enough for this style and are the best part of this release, even if seldom they are used. One might draw comparisons to Hypothermia's Kim, who is an excellent screamer himself.

To sum up, a piece capable of evoking a distinct feeling of misery, but which sadly isn’t developed enough, in my amateur opinion. Granted, the vision of a person struggling with depression and his sanity is well presented, but this doesn’t go anywhere with it. Mainly, this song could be comparable to seeing a movie, which is somehow cut short sometime before it’s end, leaving the final confrontation unseen. I was left waiting for some climax, a crescendo, a final blast of suicidal rage, imploding blast of self-destruction. But alas, such is the nature of life, I guess. The End does not come with a bang, no, but a whimper.

To start off this review, I want to state that I am not a fan of the depressive black metal scene that much at all, only a few bands have ever grabbed my attention. The one band that has caught my attention more than any other depressive black metal band is this particular one, Deep-Pression. Their name says it all. Their whole point to the band is to express what it is like to be depressed through the beauty and pain in their music. Not only do they attempt this, they do it incredibly well.

If you are looking for music with a wide variety of technique and complexity, this is definitely not the album or even the band for you. Deep-Pression is a minimalist band, relying on the same slow, crunching riff over and over again. Some people more used to complicated death metal may not enjoy this because of that, but people who do not care about complexity in music (people really should not, but there are a lot of metalheads out there that do think complexity means everything unfortunately) The riffs in this "Black Metal Symphony" as I call it, are crushing. They bring you down from the world in color and full of happiness down to the artist's world with nothing but darkness and black and white. This is no window to the mind of a depressed human, this IS the mind of a severely depressed human. I can say this because I have been through it myself, and no band has been able to catch this complex emotion/mental illness like Deep-Pression has.

As for the vocals, they are pretty unique. Well, at least I have never really heard anything like them before. Their vocals sound like someone is crying, not like a Burzum kind of cry, where it still sounds like a black metal scream, the crying is just plain old, well, crying. It is hard to really say the vocals are black metal like, but they add so much to the atmosphere of the album.

In conclusion, for those of you who like black metal, and don't mind very, very slow repetitive riffs and want a thick, depressive atmosphere, this is the album for you. If you are not attracted by that kind of approach in black metal, stay away. You definitely won't like it. But those who are looking for this style, you cannot go wrong with Deep-Pression's "I Walk The LIfe In Depression."

Deep-pression. A band who have several ties to some of the best known bands in the business, in recent times at least. Ties to bands like Happy Days and Trist will indicate almost immediately what one should be expecting from this record, 'I Walk The Life In Depression'. Happy Days and Trist are two bands on either side of the spectrum. Whilst both bands entertain the idea of suicide, Deep-pression insists on it. Happy Days have received bad press, it has to be said. People are weary of their style. The use of a bad microphone and an incompetent drummer were the cries of the black metal fan base. Trist, on the other hand, were subjected to good press. I myself love Trist. The Czech band happens to be one of my favourites within the depressive black metal genre. For a lot of people, there would be a fair amount of apprehension before listening to this record. It's fair to say that whilst Deep-pression do consist of the bare essentials of the aforementioned bands, they're still fairly different.


Primarily, it would seem, Deep-pression began life in the realms of the dark ambient genre. Whilst the minimalist nature of the dark ambient scene will not impress a fair amount of people, the simplicity is likely to sway others. I myself can see both sides of the spectrum. Whilst I do like minimalist music, I can understand the concerns. Repetition is fine by me, but in this form, it's rather disappointing. There is a distinct lack of spark. Whilst the music is meant to portray the negative emotions we feel on a day-to-day basis, the music itself could still contain that something special that makes it glorious. 'I Walk The Life In Depression' is an acquired taste. Dark ambient has never been a genre of music that i've followed closely. My only experience of it lies in the LLN, which i'm sure most black metal fans are familiar with already. Amaka Hahina being the only LLN black metal band that I can truly stomach, but only once in a while.


Music like this doesn't come along very often and it's clear to see why. There is no percussion. That instantly takes away any drive that the band might possess. Drums add punch. Whilst guitars can do the work of the drums, in terms of adding a spark, they certainly don't in this case. Why? Well because the guitars aren't meant to. It's really that simple. Like the general atmospheric nature of this record, the sound of the guitars aimlessly floats around, not really achieving anything. For long periods, it's one constant riff. Repeat, repeat, repeat. There are times when the guitars subside and the ambience takes over, but it never really grabs the attention of the audience who are willing for it to burst into life. Instead, the ambience drifts. Whilst the vocals attempt to add something in the way of force behind the noise, they don't achieve anything but a headache for the listener. The vocals don't have any place on an album like this. They're too loud, too distracting and too crude. One wonders what happened to the bass also. Whilst music can operate without the bass, the omission of the percussion side of things really does take the sting out of the record. Not for everyone.

This is one of the finest suicidal black metal albums ever made, along with Life is Pain's Bloody Melancholy, and Veins or Kold by Hypothermia...

The album is consisting of one track, and that’s all that’s needed to have you reaching for that razorblade. About 31 minutes long, almost the same guitar riff over and over again, along with Rh- playing the same ambient passage all through the song. For about 3 minutes Rh- plays this ambient passage that gives you no idea how the rest of the song will turn out. Then Hetre’s tortured screaming comes in, not just one scream at a time, but layers and layers of screaming, making you think your in an asylum or something. This screaming continues on for almost the whole song, forcing you to either panic, or just break into tears. Trance inducing, yet soul crushing at the same time...It is hard to believe an album with so little variation could keep my interest for so long, but it did, and it is one of my favourite albums of all time.

Having contact with RH- is just proof to me that this album is dead serious. This album is proof that time will not heal some wounds, however some wounds become even sweeter than they were before as time passes. The more I listen to this album, the more I love it...

This is highly recommended to anyone that is sick of this world of Burzum clones trying to pass themselves off as suicidal black metal...This is quite an original album.

Fans of this may also like Hypothermia, Trist (Trist was on this release, he did all the instruments, other than ambience and vocals), and Life is Pain...