voila_la_scorie Dead Quiet are a little hard for me to label. They’re said to be doom metal/stoner rock with lots of seventies influences, but I’d say they are basically a very heavy stoner rock band with a lot of sludge factor. Their self-titled debut was released in 2015 with the track “Foul Words” released with a bizarre video that seems to be about a guy who can’t feel any sensation of pain and goes about trying to injure and harm himself throughout the video, from smashing beer bottles over his head to swallowing powdered laundry detergent with bleach.

Of the nine tracks here, five of them are loaded with sludge-like heavy chords and vocalist Kevin Keegan screaming over top of it all. The other four tracks blend acoustic and clean electric guitar with the band’s thousand-ton chords. The lyrics seem to be mostly about soul-devastating frustration and despondency over loss or a burning desire to rise above and crush all the sources of this mental anguish with whatever final flame of desire to survive remains. Check out titles like “Home Is Where You Go to Die”, “The Fall of Me” or “God Was Wrong”. The track, “Remaining Remains” includes the reading of a eulogy while the track, “God Was Wrong” will have you wanting to guzzle down beers during the acoustic verses and then smash the empties over your head for the crushing chorus.

There are some cool little surprises that show up to add some diversity to the dark and self-obliterating atmosphere in the heavier parts. “Remaining Remains” includes a sparse yet moody bass riff that had me thinking of the Butthole Surfers “Locust Abortion Technician” album. “The Fall of Me” includes a picked banjo and later has a weird synthesizer part with a steady bass pulse and cymbals for percussion that could have been something from Animals/The Wall era Pink Floyd. “Home Is Where You Go to Die” could sound like a grunge band similar to Nirvana doing a partly clean guitar, melodic track. Some of the songs also change partway through either picking up the pace a little or darkening down.

This isn’t an album I personally would think to play through in its entirety often even though there are no tracks I don’t like. In my opinion, each of the songs are good and many have some extra quality that makes those particular tracks stand out from the general messed up mind mood. Just for me, there isn’t any one particular track or pair of tracks that really shine as “Awesome Mix” playlist inclusions.

A good and even very good album as a debut, and now that Dead Quiet have just released their third album in early autumn of 2020, I’ll be curious to know how they sound these days.