Review by Saxy S for Reticent, The - The Oubliette (2020)

Every so often, you come across an album that is so emotionally exhausting that you almost wish you never had to listen to it again, even if the album’s quality is above average. Last year, I witnessed this first hand with Lingua Ignota’s CALIGULA, an album that made me physically ill while listening to it, and a record that required multiple breaks for me to finally get through the whole thing. For most albums, this would be a detriment, but instead, Lingua Ignota’s bleak discussions on sexual abuse and “gross” production were the only way one could possibly deliver such a concept in the most direct way possible.

With The Reticent, they use progressive metal tendencies not that dissimilar to Opeth to show the emotional and cognitive decline of an individual (Henry) suffering from Alzhimer’s. And trust me, this album is dark with a capital bleak. But there are some major structural problems with it. Most notably about whose perspective this album is taken from. These songs constantly revert back and forth referring to Henry in either the first or third person, making the drama far less engaging on a full album.

The album also contains many spoken word interludes not from the perspective of Henry. The most notable of which occurs on “Stage 6: The Oubliette”, where Henry’s daughter begins the track contemplating what course of action should be taken next, and by the end, the desperation in the vocals as they cry “let me out!” are clearly not from the daughter. Speaking of spoken word interludes, this album has a problem with its breakdowns. As these tunes build up momentum towards a gigantic explosion of sound, vocal breaks are included that are not that dissimilar to the worst of metalcore breakdowns of the late 2000s.

As the album progresses, songs start to become longer, more deliberate, and lose their tuneful nature that was found on “The Palliative Breath” and “His Name Is Henry”. And perhaps that is a part of the appeal of this record; the worst parts of cognitive decline is the point where nothing is recognizable by its victim and to an onlooker, it can feel like an eternity for them to finally reach peace. This is further explored on “The Oubliette” which has an almost doom metal approach to the songwriting. The final track has the feeling of a funeral, followed by a PSA about Alzhimer’s, which should have been left out.

I can respect the effort from The Reticent to create something that is as bleak and cold as the subject matter. But key structural issues in the songwriting keep it from ascending to the higher echelons of progressive metal. And as I mentioned off the top, since this album falls into the category of “emotionally draining” as it is, the fact that I will not return to this album all that much is a major concern.