Dolorism — Wandering in Eternal City

France’s Dolorism take their life-affirming name from a post-war philosophical movement spear-headed by a compatriot of theirs, Julien Teppe, the tenets of which attribute to pain and suffering some sort of moral and intellectual value which could serve to elevate mankind to a higher sphere of spiritual comprehension. That its main proponent did suffer from all sorts of physical and mental afflictions during his life-time certainly did not help him look at the bright side of life but it seems no other person has ever gone so far in trying to rationalise their own misery. If he’d been born in the late 20th century, there can be little doubt Julien Teppe would have been a black-clad, depressed-looking emo kid.

Which brings us to Wandering in Eternal City, Dolorism’s very first outing, released in 300 copies by Le Crépuscule du soir /Reminiscences Production and the track listing of which, spread with references to all things dark and gloomy, reads like a genuine via dolorosa the sole intention of which seems to give monsieur Teppe’s frame of mind some sort of aural equivalent. Accompanied by the screams of lost souls, the listener is being invited on a never-ending stroll into the murky streets of some forlorn metropolis that oozes despair at every corner. For nigh on eighty minutes, his will be a relentless journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind, a demanding affair set to the sound of infernal machinery, grinding cogwheels, inhuman screams and ignominious whispers. Some neo-classical leanings rear their welcome head towards the end and somewhat lighten the mood – if such is indeed possible – but on the whole, the album is firmly entrenched in the gloomy dark ambient register as practised by heavyweights such as Archon Satani, Brighter Death Now or Beyond Sensory Experience. It is all being done in a very effective manner, indeed, and the results can be pretty disturbing at times for those unaccustomed to such display of utter blackness. That it doesn’t make for a nice, sunny Sunday listening experience and won’t help put children to sleep should come as no surprise.

All in all, Wandering in Eternal City is a pretty convincing album that manages to accomplish what it set out to do, i.e. conjure up images of the most disturbing kind for the discerning listener and provide soundscapes for late-at-night listening sessions. And while there is little chance it will make its way into anyone’s year-end top-ten listing, it warrants enough power of persuasion to serve as a convincing launching base for a project that, as it is, still lacks a bit of depth and personality to truly stick. On a final and not unimportant note, the opus has been mixed and mastered by Melek-Tha’s Lord Evil himself and the man also contributed to a re-working of one of the album’s tracks, the aptly-titled Jigoku Bis.