ALBUM REVIEW: Cruel Words – Déhà

DÉHÀ must surely be one of the most prolific artists in the world today. Cruel Words is the Belgian one-man project’s third full-length album of 2021 alone. If you think that’s impressive, just last year he released no less than 13 LPs, alongside several other singles, collaborations and compilations. Technically, this record is a reissue, after its original release in 2019. That said, DÉHÀ provides listeners with plenty of bang for their buck in the form of three additional tracks. These add over 20 minutes to an already lengthy runtime, the whole thing now clocking in at the 75-minute mark. Of course, this makes for quite the undertaking, but fans of the atmospheric, emotional, and often apocalyptically heavy output of the likes of AMENRA or ALCEST should definitely give this a go.

One thing that’s abundantly clear on Cruel Words is that DÉHÀ is unafraid of taking his time with his ideas. All but the album’s final track exceed seven minutes, with most of them built around one or two motifs or chord sequences. For example, opener I Am Mine To Break spends much of its runtime centred on a delicate repeated guitar line. Other guitars and DÉHÀ‘s powerful voice keep things moving along, but it’s nearly five minutes before there’s any real shift. This comes in the form of gigantic sludgy guitars and hard-hitting drums, all heavily soaked in reverb. It’s an impressive juxtaposition, and a trick DÉHÀ pulls off time and again on the record.

Despite this solid command of dynamics, there is definitely a degree of formula to Cruel Words. Five of the six original tracks follow a similar pattern to the first, starting quiet before reaching a cacophonous conclusion. The sole exception here is the title track, but even this features only a fleeting moment of relative quiet once things kick off. Laying that aside however, the quality is still usually pretty consistent. Second track Pain Is A Wasteland is darker than its predecessor, with DÉHÀ introducing hawkish harsh vocals when things get heavy. Blackness In May is more melancholy and evokes the moving post-rock of a band like CASPIAN. There’s another explosion of course, this one with a particularly resounding and uplifting feel to it at points.

It’s the album’s middle pairing of Butterflies and Dead Butterflies that marks a definite high point though. The former erupts a lot sooner than many of the others, at around the 2:50 mark. When it does, it hits with a world-ending heaviness, as a driving riff underpins various synths, strings and tortured vocals. The latter on the other hand provides perhaps the best example of DÉHÀ’s ability to really labour an idea. Specifically, it features a simple piano motif which runs through the entirety of the song’s near 13-minute runtime. Plenty happens around it as the song progresses, but it’s these few notes which provide a consistent anchor to proceedings.

After a good 53 minutes, we come to the album’s bonus tracks. The first of these is a stripped back piano-led version of album opener I Am Mine To Break. This is solid enough, but does feel a touch unnecessary. While it provides another chance for DÉHÀ to show off his powerful voice, it doesn’t add loads to the record. Saturnine after it on the other hand is definitely a welcome inclusion, and easily one of the best pieces on the album. It does what the earlier tracks were largely crying out for, with actual dynamic highs and lows rather than a quiet half and then a loud half. The album’s closer Comfort Me II does a similar thing in terms of dynamics. At five minutes, it’s the shortest song on the record, and it brings things to a fitting and mournful close.

One-man projects are an interesting phenomenon. On one hand, it’s hard not to admire the skill and vision it takes to pull them off well. On the other, there’s often a sense that an extra cook or two in the kitchen may have helped with focus. Both of these definitely apply to Cruel Words. There are a fair few moments of quality on this record, but for starters it’s definitely too long. It also feels as though DÉHÀ relies a little too heavily on the quiet-loud trick. Fortunately however, it seems from the additional tracks that he’s getting away from just that. Hopefully, as DÉHÀ no doubt goes about releasing however many more albums he likes this year, he’ll expand his musical vocabulary even more – even if that does leave the rest of us struggling to keep up with the sheer size of his discography.

Rating: 7/10

Cruel Words is out now via Burning World Records.

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