Review
Amenra
De Doorn

Memories burn in the flames while onlookers stare on. Relief washes over those present as though cleansed in the fires and reborn. Screams of catharsis spill from the lips of the watchers, emptying their souls of all the hurt and pain that has brought them to this point. Letting go of the mistakes and agonies that tie us to this world and releasing the despair into the night.

This is the concept of De Doorn (The Thorn), a work of art that has been in flux through Amenra for years. First as a performance in 2019 that marked the twentieth anniversary of the band, the departure of member Levy Seynaeve and the end of the First World War and which culminated in the burning of photographs, letters and keepsakes in structures created by Indonesian artist Toni Kanwa Adikusumah. This ritual was a rite of passage to the other side of hope, to forming bonds in hardship and to recognising that while the past has shaped us, it does not dictate to us our future.

The Belgian collective of Amenra have been using their music to collect their thoughts and to navigate extremely personal issues since their inception in 1999. They have moved through hardcore, doom and sludge and now their sound is uniquely their own. Hard to describe but easily recognisable when you hear it as a call to arms, to building pain as a temple and destroying it with sheer force of will. De Doorn is not exactly the same as the music heard during the ceremony of 2019 and has undergone changes through time and recording but the central themes are present and the feeling of release still passes through the music.

Leaving behind the Mass collections, De Doorn marks out its own path as Amenra take a less structured approach to the music, allowing the instrumentation to take new steps and ambient structures to flow. The addition of Oathbreaker's Caro Tanghe to opener “Ogentroost” and the intimate “De Dood In Bloei” is beautiful, her voice fluctuating against vocalist Colin H. van Eeckhout’s in shuddering movements towards peace. For the first time, all songs are sung in the band’s native tongue of Flemish, which allows a depth that cannot often be found when speaking outside of your own language. This gives De Doorn a sense of the personal that transcends what Amenra have done previously, which is deeply private by all accounts, however this album feels much more about the inner turmoil than ever before while also allowing us, the audience, those moments to feel connected in that pain through songs that give pause for reflection and screams that are pulled from the very depths of the soul.

“Ogentroost” begins De Doorn on ambient soundscapes that are coloured with darkness as the song builds in subtle layers towards simple guitar movements and a spoken word section. This is the beginning of the ritual, the slow procession towards the centre of the fire and the place in which the past can be laid to rest. It’s a gently oppressive start, the sounds washing over you and coercing a sense of security in the softness before the song opens up and Colin H. van Eeckhout’s voice is cast out over the waves. Caro Tanghe adds depth with a voice that is perfectly matched to van Eeckhout’s in intensity at opposing ends of the scale with a smoothness that melds with the howls in a way that echoes the raging hope and hopelessness of loss — that light can be found within such pitch darkness.

There is a calm atmosphere once again on the serenely rendered “De Dood In Bloei” which gives a moment of respite in the sea of agony as Tanghe and van Eeckhout speak over electronically produced ambience of loss and death before “De Evenmens” ignites and Amenra spin back into the harsh, bleak night to face the memories of the lost and to begin to heal. Colin’s voice moves from unearthly screams to delicate spoken word to sublime clean lines, each a narrative of its own that is keenly felt, a life that has been lived and a life that has been extinguished.

Much of Amenra’s work is a totem to pain but it is also a way to move through that despair and to face the light once again. Seeing Amenra perform in the live setting is an experience like no other and you leave feeling cleansed, as though you have given them your grief and they have given theirs to you and together you have walked through the smoke to emerge a new person, someone who has learned from loss and has found hope flickering in the darkness. “Het Gloren” marks the fire ritual itself, a new dawn that follows the darkness of night in its ability to refresh and to bring new light to moments of chaos. Vocals move between cries of heartbreak and spoken word (a technique that is used often but not overused, the poetic cadence is superb) while guitars climb towards new heavens and multiple voices coalesce around truly mournful melodies.

“Voor Immer” closes De Doorn on gentle strums of guitar and echoing, choral synth lines that underpin the sorrow of the spoken word piece above. Colin E. van Eeckhout’s voice is clear and precise, the Flemish language allowing a range of emotion to spoken and laid out for all to see as the sacrament to pain comes to an end. As the song moves forward, beautiful clean vocals are introduced adding a new plane of peacefulness to the moment as though acceptance has finally been reached. The silence is soon shattered by a sudden explosion of sound as Amenra come to reveal the fire that has been burning in the long night is a method of destruction and of purification. That we can give ourselves a chance to heal by letting go of the anger and grief of the past, by giving that emotion to the fire and emerging with a new hope for the future.