ALBUM REVIEW: Managed Decline – Underdark
With their incredibly diverse and impressive take upon a core black metal sound, UNDERDARK have garnered a lot of well deserved praise in their eight years as a band, both for their music and their imposing live performances. Crafting a powerful and eclectic brand of post-black metal that is as atmospheric as it is acerbic, the Nottingham-based quintet have stood apart from many of their contemporaries within the UK’s black metal underground stylistically, with their first album – 2021’s Our Bodies Burned Bright On Re-Entry – having a much more fully-formed sound than many bands typically achieve on a debut. Now, almost two and a half years since that album’s release, the band are back with Managed Decline, an album that is even more adventurous and creative than its predecessor and one that firmly establishes the band as one of the most potent and promising acts within British extreme metal.
The Past We Inherit, The Future We Build (28th February 1972), is a short, sombre instrumental piece that gently lulls the listener into the album. It quickly gives way to the monolithic Managed Decline I (1st April 1988), a slow-burning and grandiose start to the album proper, with powerful guitars and a soaring, ambient undercurrent. It has an epic edge to it, with the snarling vocals that counterpoint this warmer sound very quickly matched by a much more forceful, discordant sound, lending a much more caustic, jarring side to the music that couples impactful blackened metal with a touch of hardcore to make for a much meatier sound. The over-arching, bombastic melodies add some incredibly catchy and energetic moments into the mix that work extremely well, making for an impressively varied and gargantuan start to the record that immediately draws the listener in.
Employment (16th June 1993) introduces an angelic post-rock element that blends very well with the sharper black metal, creating an awe-inspiring and cavernous sound that is lighter without stripping away too much of the aggression. The same shrieking vocals and frenetic motifs keep the biting, blistering side of the previous song’s sound present, albeit with the emphasis drawn away from the the weightier rhythms until the song reaches its climax. Matrimony (27th December 1997) does a great job of pushing the slick, imaginative leads more prominently to the forefront, refining the leaner, more stringent parts of the guitars and allowing them to play a greater role, with spartan vocals and thunderous drums enabling this shift towards an even more grand and soaring sound. It makes for a more focused and immersive sound with some great, accessible musicianship in spite of its more rabid moments.
Raised For A World That No Longer Exists, a fleeting interlude centred upon minimalist, crystalline guitars and haunting ambience, completely removes the harder elements from the album’s sound, acting as a great, polished segue that leads into Enterprise (1st November 2004) perfectly. This has those much more robust basslines and searing guitar work that defined the first couple of tracks on the album, with the vocals shifting to incorporate gutturals a lot more alongside the feral, hellish howls that have made up the majority of the vocals on this record, pushing the music into even denser territories than before and making this by far one of the most ferocious outings on the whole album. Managed Decline II (2nd November 2004) fantastically ties together the lighter, post-rock parts of UNDERDARK‘s sound with the searing, blackened intensity that undercuts almost everything on this record, creating a glorious, layered sound that is as ethereal as it is bellicose at times, without either portion of the sound dominating too much. This dreamy and well-balanced sound is wide-ranging and, just as importantly, impressively punchy and memorable, bringing proceedings to an epic and dramatic conclusion.
Managed Decline is a stunning record at points, building upon the many strengths of the band’s debut and leaning even further into the ambience-drenched yet muscular sound that they’ve almost perfected. The noxious blending of black metal, shoegaze, post-rock and even hints of sludge has often been adopted by black metal acts, but it’s extremely rare to be done as well as it is here. This incredibly imaginative and beguiling album could, and should, see UNDERDARK take up the mantle for politically strident extreme metal that DAWN RAY’D held until their recent disbandment, establishing them as not only one of the most imaginative bands within the UK scene, but also one of its most thought-provoking.
Rating: 9/10
Managed Decline is out now via Church Road Records.
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