YRITYS: Delusion(s)

Release year: 2023
Label: Misantropia Records

The name Yritys has caused chuckles among Finnish audiences – and for good reason, too. You see, the Swedish band were, I assume, trying to convey depressed, nihilistic and misanthropic images with a name referencing suicide attempts; itsemurhayritys is Finnish for attempted suicide. However, yritys standalone is overwhelmingly used to mean company, as in business. So, naturally, Finnish people got a good laugh wondering if this is the first black metal band with a strong pro-market emphasis.

But, as mentioned above, the intended meaning behind the name references suicide. And as such, it is no surprise to discover that these Swedes play depressive suicidal black metal, or DSBM for short, that weird mutant style of black metal that was popularized by the likes of Shining some twenty-odd years ago.

To be honest, I never really liked DSBM. I never could get into aforementioned Shining, or Xasthur, or Silencer, or just about any other purveyor of the style. In part the reason was musical, but even more so, it had to do with the image. To put it bluntly, the self-deprecating lyrics and imagery of weakness, failure and mental collapse just felt… well, shite. I’m not belittling or deriding mental illness in itself, but the portrayals always felt so very fake.

A great starting point to approach Yritys, right?

And indeed, I do admit that the same things rub me all the wrong ways still. The lyrics dealing with mental illness, depression, suicide, misanthropy and disillusionment feel caricaturized in the wrong way. This wallowing in weakness feels insincere to me. And the vocal delivery – anguished howls, pitiful moaning, pathetic mumbling – don’t help things. In a way, they do get the job done and make it clear what the intended atmosphere and mood is, but I can’t say I like them.

But on the other hand, looking past these aspects that I dislike, there’s stuff to commend about the album. Musically, this is very much on the softer side of black metal, with the guitars having a rather soft instead of harsh or abrasive tone even when shredding. And a lot of the time Yritys focus on calm atmospherics, which owe an obvious debt to post punk. The first track Nihilistic Delusions – what a cliché name! – begins with a trademark throbbing, pulsating post punk/goth rock bass line, over which a tender, undistorted guitar is introduced. This is quite beautiful.

Overall, the moments where Yritys focus on atmospherics, on calm passages of melancholy sadness and languishing, slow melodies, things click a lot of the time. I can even overlook my dislike of the lyrics and the vocals at those times. When they speed up the tempos and let the buzzsawing guitars kick in, I like it a lot less. Yritys never get abrasive or aggressive, and the self-deprecating pathetic edge to the music becomes too much for me then.

As I said above, I don’t really like DSBM. As such my rather harsh criticism of some elements of the album will come as no surprise – if I dislike DSBM, how likely is it that I will like an album that’s stylistically pretty standard DSBM? Not very.

And indeed, Delusion(s) doesn’t rise to become the exception to the rule. There’s a lot on this album I don’t like. But there is also stuff here that does click with me. Within its own context, Delusion(s) is far from a bad album: for those to whom the standard trappings of DSBM are a draw rather than a repellant, the very things I’ve criticized will most likely hit home. And then there are the beautiful passages and the nice little post punk touches.

So for someone who usually at the most passingly scoffs at DSBM to say that an album isn’t totally suck. Well, I guess that almost counts as praise?

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