Doesn't matter how best I will strive to, and succeed in describing this indescribable music, for better or for worse, Stijn, the man behind these sounds, does not really need yet another 'wise-guy' to throw any superlatives nor insults in his direction, as he surely has received the highest praises coming from much more experienced doom-minds, and much less esoteric ones, mostly notable being the hands of J. Del Russi of Black Beyond Music/Hierophant and Kostas, the man behind Doom-Metal Dot Com and Pantheist, both of which have written quite skillful and descriptive reviews about Until Death Overtakes Me and the music behind that name, so what meaning really my opinion will bear? Above that, it is clearly one of the most independent creative minds out there, a free soul, that will soar and dive to realms unknown with no relation to our, smart-asses' opinion, and whatever I shall write would be, after all, a glimpse at a squared inch of a vast painting, only a description of a single piece taken from a million-pieces jigsaw puzzle...I had first asked myself why should I even bother review this piece, apart from my promise to the artist who has bothered himself to sent me the disks...I mean I'm not into dark ambient, nor ever have been...I am definitely into metal, first and foremost, the more extreme, the more obscure, the more intelligent - the better, but definitely, I am a metal guy. The Cold Meat Industry releases have never interested me for more than a single listen, and the hype around Raison D'etre is something I have never understood nor understand nor ever will...I do, however, consider myself extremely open-minded, never prejudiced and never having any sort of tunnel-vision attitude, so sure, I could dive into the most esoteric dark ambient/darkwave/power electronics and may find some things out there, but these finding are doubtfully to fill the need for power I lack and strive for in my suppressing everyday life...Can a keyboard ever generate the power in the body, a storming down-tuned guitar could? Can gentle, soothing sounds ever replace the maelstrom of some roaring vocals and crushing drumming? Can anything be more nihilistic than extreme metal? Well, Stijn Van Cauter, the originator of Until Death Overtakes Me has almost succeeded in convincing me...Although I always seek the most unusual cross-over attempts in combining extreme metal with other elements, I have always liked the ones who are not only able to combine successfully some of the most impossible hybrids into a wonderful outcome, but these bands who still preserve religiously the 'metallic' elements in their music, and manage never to neglect them or 'sacrifice' those on the altars of experimentation...Than I had come across the funeral doom sub-genre, and learned about the power of the more ethereal sounds being incorporated into the already harsh metal: not only that the keys, the chants, the classical influences have not subdued the power surge in me caused by the guitars, drums and wretched, sorrowful, undead vocals, but actually have increased the level of mystery, darkness and hopelessness...It was as if I was eating a puffed-sugar candy, only to find out someone had hidden amidst it a piece of barbed wire, and while eating, both pleasure and pain strike me synchronously...It is always the most unnerving aspect, meeting two extremities clashing mercilessly at each other: a crooked clown with sharp teeth, a beautiful but dead girl, a porn star with empty eyes...get the idea? Mister Van Cauter has managed to create this perfect 'clash of the titans', in combing those two elements, the heaviness of the metallic side of doom and the angelic side of it, into a black, blistering lump, that is not only beautiful in the outcome, but also extremely foreboding and unsettling...I mentioned the music as being 'angelic', but if so, it would be the song of the most battered, drowned, quartered, torn-apart blackened angel, that has cast a shadow of impending and definite doom upon the human race only to tell of its downward spiral towards oblivion, or worse...This creation, 'Deep Dark Red', is yet another step for the funeral-doom style, a development towards it being almost metal-free, in the dark ambient direction, and although the musical experience is as beautiful and effective as can ever be accomplished by sounds, I am worried whether or not the funeral-doom scene will lose a great musician and a deep, unique soul, in this battle against totally going ambient, a loss that will be great and regretful, for me and for many others, I'm sure, that were stirred a great deal by these sounds...sounds to weep while listening to, to love, to die...Yes, I can easily go on writing on and on, telling so many tales about those sounds, soundscapes, inspirations and invoked feelings, both in the music and in the listener, and repeat such nouns as despair, grief, sorrow, mourning, hopelessness, pain, oh yes, I could do all that, but as I said in the opening sentence: it is a music indescribable, it is something I cannot really write about but this: You must hear it to believe it. I know of course I am getting away with a very difficult task, I know that by doing so I evade the bullets of being original in my writing and am canceling the agonizing task of harnessing all my writing skills and taking them to the maximum, but I also keep the notion that not all music can be or should be described, because when writing about it, one cannot avoid the 'technical' terms and 'analyzing' attitude towards it, and some time it is something that should not be done, need not be done. Such is the music of Stijn Van Cauter, and such immensely exquisite and original it is. Highly recommended only for the most patient souls, who appreciate not only heaviness, but mostly bleakness, quality, and really aspire to wander off across vast oceans of the very left-hand paths of dark music, because it never gets darker than that...

© 2002 c. drishner