WE ALL DIE (LAUGHING) — Thoughtscanning (review)

WE ALL DIE (LAUGHING) — Thoughtscanning album cover Album · 2014 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
adg211288
Thoughtscanning (2014) is the debut full-length album by international (French/Bulgarian) progressive metal act We All Die (Laughing). We All Die (Laughing) is a duo that consists of vocalist Arnaud Strobl and instrumentalist/vocalist Déhà while Thoughtscanning consists of a single thirty-three minute long track. There is also a bonus track in circulation which is a cover of Back to Black by the late Amy Winehouse. Not the most obvious choice of cover song for an extreme progressive metal act. The track was not provided with my promo copy of the album to comment on how it turned out.

The lone song on Thoughtscanning, Thoughtscan (I'm unsure on why there's a difference in title for a release like this), is a varied but rather ponderous beast. Déhà is competent musically and takes the listener through quite a few different moods ranging from melodic guitar playing, doomy parts and depressive black metal elements. It's obvious early on that Thoughtscanning isn't supposed to be for the casual listener. It takes a while to get going and the often mournful feeling certainly isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. While I hear a fair bit in the actual music I enjoy there are quite a few parts I dislike too and since we're only discussing one song here that's quite the problem and severely hinders my enjoyment of the song/album overall. My problems are more with the vocals of the two guys (I'm unsure of which parts each member sings) than the musicianship although that's certainly got its ups and downs as well. Not all the ideas work and the clean singing featured is definitely the weakest of the links. There are also times where it just feels like the composition isn't going to go anywhere further and that's when my attention starts to drift.

Thoughtscanning strikes me as the sort of release that a certain rare breed of listener is going to utterly love and praise as one of the best albums ever written but it's definitely not something for my palate and I think that there are a few too many ups in downs in the quality of the one song and too many conflicting moods to really recommend it all that highly when being objective either. It does come across as professional I'll give it that. The changes in style and mood never feel forced, that's not why Thoughtscanning doesn't work for me. I just think this one is very niche. 2 stars seems fair; I may have gone a little higher if it managed to fully keep my attention.

43/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/we-all-die-laughing-thoughtscanning-t3798.html)
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