(Leperkahn is back for the second day in a row, this time reviewing the debut album by We All Die (Laughing).)

I meant to review this debut release from Belgium’s We All Die (Laughing) a lot earlier (when it came out back in January, in fact), but the mind is a feeble thing, and only now, with the kind reminder of fellow reader Vonlughlio, do I remember that I meant to delve into this single-song EP (at least that’s how I think it’s being branded). As I’ve said many times in the past, damn me for forgetting to do this earlier, ‘cause I’ll be damned if anything not named The Satanist has this beat so far, and not much has a chance of surmounting it, though we have ten months left in the year.

This release is less of a song and more of a theatric production delivered by electric guitar and vocal menace, a metal opera of sorts. Though it starts with some My Dying Bride-esque doom, it comes to incorporate Machine Head’s more epic moments, Opeth-ian death/doom, a slowed-down taste of Marduk, Behemoth-style majesty, evocative Scott Kelly-sound-a-like vocals, and depressive suicidal black metal shrieks. It  features not only a ridiculous variety of vocal timbres, but also such exotic instruments as a clarinet and a flute (pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve heard a clarinet in metal, other than those tech-death covers that one guy does on YouTube). I almost don’t want to say how it ends; that would feel like giving away the end of a great book, movie, or TV show. Continue reading »