{"id":601564,"date":"2026-04-23T12:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/601564\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:37:09","slug":"avertat-dead-end-life-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/601564\/","title":{"rendered":"Avertat – Dead End Life Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"German death-doom outfit D\u00e9cembre Noir has received a fair amount of praise here over the years, with four of their five albums garnering \u2018Great\u2019 to \u2018Good\u2019 ratings from three of AMG\u2019s finest\u2014Madame X, Huck N\u2019 Roll and, most recently, Ferox, whose review of 2023\u2019s Your Sunset | My Sunrise cited a band that may be resting on laurels, perhaps having lost touch with its muse. Whether those issues led Sebastian G\u00f6rlach, founding guitarist and one of two main songwriters, to depart the band in the Spring of 2024 is unclear. It is, however, germane since he has returned with a new death doom project, Avertat, and a debut album, Dead End Life. While G\u00f6rlach admits it was hard to walk away from his \u201cbaby,\u201d Avertat offers him the opportunity to reunite with \u201cthe same forces that have always defined his relationship with metal: emotional truth, atmospheric depth, and the ability to transform darkness into sound.\u201d All that\u2019s left to decide is whether Avertat, and more importantly, Dead End Life, has any future.<\/p>\n

On Dead End Life, Avertat draws from the same well of desolate darkness that D\u00e9cembre Noir has plumbed for years. Add a fair amount of My Dying Bride to the mix, and you can sense what Avertat is about. From skins to strings, G\u00f6rlach impressively handles all of Dead End Life\u2019s instrumental responsibilities, even contributing his own deathly growls\u2014here, a satisfying mix of Mikael Akerfeldt and Lars Dotzauer. Tracks adhere to a tried-and-true formula, oscillating between speedier, chug-heavy melo-death (\u201cYour Hate,\u201d \u201cThe Sea\u201d) and slower-paced, melancholic doom (\u201c[7],\u201d \u201cCall to Death\u201d). And while the addition of clean vocals is hardly groundbreaking, the crisp, prog-poppy tones of non-metal newcomer Enrico Langguth\u2014eerily reminiscent of Tim Charles (Ne Obliviscaris)\u2014are refreshing and bright, serving as a dynamic counterpoint to G\u00f6rlach\u2019s gruffness. Langguth\u2019s emotively hopeful delivery both assuages and drives home the pain of Dead End Life\u2019s deeply emotional stories, which are as heavy as Avertat\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

\ufeffDead End Life by Avertat<\/a><\/p>\n

Avertat wastes no time getting down to its bleak, loss-is-life business. Album opener \u201cYour Hate\u201d sets the tone, its chunky, angry riffs, razor-sharp leads, and driving drum beats employed to tell the story of an abused child grown up to take care of his abusive parent as G\u00f6rlach roars the lyric, \u201cWhenever your hand rises, time blurs within me, I am the child that endures it,\u201d before pleading, \u201cWhen will you stop, when will you stop living?\u201d This anguish cedes to another as the beautiful piano intro of \u201c[7]\u201d introduces us to the painful tale of Marianne Bachmeier. Doomy chords and lilting leads are the backdrop as Langguth croons a mother\u2019s lament, \u201cSeeking out for her smile, I always search for her hand, always held onto her so close\u201d before death-heavy riffs and G\u00f6rlach\u2019s growls come crashing in, \u201cEvery shot looses the chains, gifts me freedom for the moment,\u201d reflecting a mother\u2019s vigilante-fueled grief and anger. Whether it\u2019s the Line of Deathless Kings-like lilting leads and doomy riffs of \u201cCall to Death\u201d and \u201cLast Request,\u201d\u2014the former a song about war as told through the eyes of war, replete with some Bolt Throwerish chugs\u2014or the long-form doom-goodery of \u201cMy Blood,\u201d recounting a father\u2019s pride, Avertat packs a wallop.<\/p>\n

\"\"Barely shy of 39 minutes, Avertat doesn\u2019t loiter, and despite the brevity of this kind being rare in the genre, it definitely increases Dead End Life\u2019s replay value. In fact, as the final strains of \u201cLast Request\u201d faded from my speakers, I found myself longing for another song, settling instead to start Dead End Life again. G\u00f6rlach\u2019s production\u2014yes, he produced Dead End Life too\u2014is warm and enveloping, leaving little for me to quibble with. I suppose, if pressed, I could say I connected least with the blast beats of \u201cThe Sea,\u201d as they ran rampant under slower-paced guitars and vocals, but honestly, \u2019twas a small thing. I just wish there was MOAR!<\/p>\n

Avertat delivers a heartfelt experience on Dead End Life, rife with emotional and musical heaviness\u2014elevated by the back-and-forth vocal trade-offs of G\u00f6rlach and Langguth. While I can\u2019t pontificate on D\u00e9cembre Noir\u2019s future without Sebastian G\u00f6rlach, I can absolutely say that Avertat\u2019s future looks bright, despite a recipe that peddles in darkness. I will absolutely be here for whatever comes next, and so too should you.<\/p>\n

Rating: 3.5\/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Label: Lifeforce Records<\/a>
Websites: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German death-doom outfit D\u00e9cembre Noir has received a fair amount of praise here over the years, with four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[54639,12018,248509,261658,261659,261660,12028,88,59898,261661,46879,216,153110,899],"class_list":{"0":"post-601564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-54639","9":"tag-3-5","10":"tag-apr26","11":"tag-avertat","12":"tag-dead-end-life","13":"tag-decembre-noir","14":"tag-doom-metal","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-german-metal","17":"tag-lifeforce-records","18":"tag-melodic-death-metal","19":"tag-music","20":"tag-my-dying-bride","21":"tag-review"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}