AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: DE PROFUNDIS — “BEYOND THE THRESHOLD”

photo by Ester Segarra

 

The name De Profundis is one you will recognize if you’ve been a frequent visitor to our site (or have otherwise kept your antennae alert to the emergence of excellent metal), given that we have published positive reviews of their 2013 album The Emptiness Within, their 2014 EP Frequencies, and most recently (and most glowingly) their latest album, Kingdom of the Blind, released in 2015. Of that album, my comrade Andy Synn wrote:

“[T]his move towards a proggier outlook – more expressive and textured and, ultimately, more natural – has clear benefits for both the Prog and the Death aspects of the band’s sound. The heaviest moments benefit from a greater sense of focus and direction, while the band’s progressive side is given free rein to fully express itself, and, on a grander scale, the songs themselves feel simultaneously more streamlined and structured, yet also more complex and freeform, with a greater sense of fluidity and flow between moments of blast-fuelled fury and expansive, melodic creativity…. Kingdom of the Blind is by far the band’s finest hour, and every subsequent re-listen has only cemented this impression.”

 

2017 represents De Profundis’ tenth year as a recording band, marking the passage of a decade since the release of their debut, Beyond Redemption. The band have been celebrating that achievement (which is not merely a record of survival, but a mark of continuous growth and forward progress) throughout the year.

Those activities have included a UK tour with Taake and Fen; a full European tour alongside David Vincent’s I Am Morbid, Necrophagia, Helsott, and The Heretic Order; and the release of Decayed: 2007 – 2017, a career retrospective collection that included a brand new track, “An Orgy Of Grotesqueries“, that we reviewed here.

But a couple of events remain before De Profundis turn the page on the last decade of their life and move on to a new chapter, which will include a new album in 2018.

 

One of those is a free gig on October 21st at The Unicorn in Camden, London, where they played their very first show. They have explained that the show “will see the band drawing a line under the early part of their career and many of their classic songs will be aired for what may be the last time”. They will be accompanied on the bill by Meat Train, who will be launching the release of their new album, Random Acts of Carnage (on Contagion Records).

And another commemorative event is the one we’re announcing in this very post: The release of a new live video, capturing the performance of one of the strongest tracks on Kingdom of the Blind — “Beyond the Threshold“.

 

The video was filmed at the Dome in Tufnell Park, London, on December 11, 2015, during the band’s tour with Gorgoroth, Gehenna, and Kampfar. Credit for the camera work goes to Dolli Films, and Arran McSporran is due the credit for editing. For this video, the song was specially remastered by Tom Sullivan, who was also responsible for the remastering work on that recent career retrospective album mentioned above, Decayed: 2007 – 2017.

The song itself is a sheer thrill to hear (as well as to watch in its performance by De Profundis), an instrumental tour de force that includes wonderful guitar and bass soloing. And while the vocals are full of grit and death, the song (at least to this listener) is gloriously uplifting, full of life and passion and crackling with infectious energy.

Enjoy the video below, and watch this space for further news about the band’s next album:

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/deprofundistheband/