This band wears its influences on its sleeve — Evoken, Worship, Skepticism, and Colosseum — but at its core, this is something more like EyeHateGod, a riff look that breaks into an inner sanctum of something like rage, emulating a cry from the betrayed generation that carved out the rudiments of underground metal.

These chord progressions will sound most familiar to Skepticism fans, as will the interplay of keyboards and guitar, but its saving grace is that these are good pop hooks, more in line with Paradise Lost or Candlemass. Each song trudges its way through some fundamentally depressing modes but keeps a tuneful sense about it, making these easy descents into morbidity.

Does this convey a mood of doom? More like depression and isolation; the ultimate doom music would be indie-pop, which conveys futility, submission, and fatalism with artificial cheer on top, like the parents of that betrayed generation. Deber goes to a darker place and makes it intriguing.

The label issues:

On November 5th internationally, PERSONAL RECORDS is proud to present DEBER’s striking debut album, Aspire to Affliction. A new, up-and-coming funeral doom band, with the signing of DEBER does PERSONAL RECORDS state with this release that it is more than a genre-oriented label: it is a 100% music-oriented one and releases what it likes – PERSONAL stuff, PERSONAL tastes.

Hailing from Sweden, DEBER are a funeral doom metal band consisting of two members from high-profile bands: DIE (Anguish, Ondskapt) and HCF (Avksy, Acolytes of Moros). They formed in 2020 when the pandemic broke out, and their main reason for forming DEBER was to create something even darker and denser than their previous bands – achieving this by going slow, and going full-on funeral doom.

Indeed, they accomplish that – and MORE, going slower and deeper – with their monolithic debut album, Aspire to Affliction. Aptly titled, Aspire to Affliction doesn’t aspire to recreate the wheel; rather, DEBER aspire to create traditional funeral doom in the mold of masters Evoken, Worship, Skepticism, and Colosseum among others. Indeed, with DIE in charge of strings and organ while HCF handles drums and vocals, DEBER’s focused onslaught of sound retains a single-minded focus, but equally shows no shortage of imagination, as the organ work, in particular, evinces an especially inspired creepiness and centuries-old aura.

Recorded between May 2020 and July of 2021, DEBER brought to life/death Aspire to Affliction wholly inspired by the glimmering city lights full of miserable conditions as seen from the woods of Uppsala, where the album was recorded. Those sensations are writ large here, for your imminent imbibement and ruination: this is music for your funeral.

Tags: deber, Doom Metal