Ded En – The Gala
Ded En has made their doom-filled debut with the five-song EP The Gala. A showcase of brutal guitar atmospherics, this solo act pushes limits of genre by incorporating elements of shoegaze, slowcore, and doom metal into a melancholy meditation. Expect walls of blown-out guitar rhythms, gloopy guitar leads that drip like thick molasses, and through-an-old-phone vocals that chant with a brooding monotone affect. If you’re wondering what it feels like to die (in a good way, if that’s possible), The Gala might be a good place to start.
The album kicks off with an instrumental, “March.” Immediately, we’re introduced to the recurring motifs of Ded En’s sound. Fuzzy bass plunking, triple-Big-Muff (TM) guitar tones, and surprisingly tender drumming… And while the brutality of the guitar tones is the album’s real calling card, the quiet drumming keeps these songs grounded, rooted just as equally in slowcore as doom metal. It’s a wonderful and unique juxtaposition that categorizes Ded En into a genre of their own – brutal in its own right, but equally meditative instead of the slam-your-head-into-the-wall intensity that you might expect from a metal act. “Firecracker” is a fitting follow up, continuing these same elements into a song that finally introduces Ded En’s vocals. Lines like “I sing softly / from my bedroom / got my voice back / now I use it” feel perfectly placed for an act like this – you may even recognize this theme later on in “Voice Back,” which inspires a sense of continuity across the EP.
While you explore the rest of the EP, including the albums most (contextually) intense offering “Cousin,” and the sour chords and bass driven glory of the title-track closer “The Gala,” it makes you wonder just what Ded En might have in store next. Face-melting drums? Will they dive deeper into shoegaze? Cool things down and embrace their slowcore side? Or come up with another genre-bending wonder altogether?
The Gala is available now (May 24th, 2025) via bandcamp, embedded below.
Categorised in: Album Reviews
This post was written by Nick Sessanna