Review by Sonny for Déhà - A fleur de peau - II - Burdening Everyone (2020)

A fleur de peau part II was intended to be released and listened to as a single, sixty-five minute track, but has been split into two due to some kind of Bandcamp restriction on track length, apparently. The album features a guest appearance by Kim Carlsson of Hypothermia on vocals, with Déhà himself being responsible for everything else, as usual. The lyrical subject matter is pretty heavy, introspective stuff, the title of the track(s), Burdening Everyone, giving some insight into the mental condition of the song's subject. According to the album's Bandcamp page, it is "a tribute to those who, inexplicably, cannot express why they do not feel comfortable in the world" and Déhà once more proves himself a master of expressing the deepest emotions of the disconnected, doing so without sounding like a self-absorbed fool. Personally, I find a lot of DSBM to be insufferable, both musically and lyrically, but Déhà is cut from a far greater quality cloth than the herd. Musically, the album is medium to slow-paced black metal, rooted in atmospheric BM, with angst-ridden, desperate and hopeless-sounding vocals. There are passages of post-metal calm that allow for more measured moments of introspection for sure, but eventually the tortured railings of the song's protagonist erupt once more into desperate screams and shrieks and the music becomes ever angrier and more ominous. A great example of DSBM done right.