Last year’s Mara | Mondrem EP was a surprise that introduced Devil Sold His Soul’s Ed Gibbs’ new project to the world, a two-track release (‘Mara’ and ‘Mondrem’, funnily enough) that set the scene through blackened majesty and swells of emotion. Having now signed to underground legends Church Road Records, its follow up Old Belief | New Despair follows in its predecessor’s footsteps, subtly expanding their sonic palette and refining their identity further.
If there’s one word that sums up Old Belief | New Despair, and indeed Copse as a whole, it’s “yearning”. Their music isn’t warm, cuddly blankets of positivity, but it’s still oddly comforting. There’s a sense of loss and sadness that permeates the music, but one that feels deeply familiar, offering solace in its embrace. The major evolution here is one that takes the blackened majesty of Mara | Mondrem and widens it from frosty blastbeats and screams to encompass an even greater range of sadness and loss.
Old Belief | New Despair is another two-track EP, this time coming with an intro in the form of ‘.’, a two-minute ambient piece with gentle strings that create a welcoming atmosphere and lead into ‘Old Belief’. At a smidge over five minutes, it’s barely a quarter of the EP but packs plenty of character into its runtime. An eruption of blasts, tremolo riffs and howling vocals are an immediate reminder of the emotional atmosphere both Copse and DSHS conjure so well. Once the black metal passes, though, it remains forlorn as a searing guitar melody snakes its way through and tugs at heartstrings.
Second and final song ‘New Despair’, though, is arguably the centrepiece of the EP. A 14-plus minute behemoth, one that throws open Copse’s doors to melodic singing, as in its first five minutes it pushes beyond the post-black borders previously set to embrace swirls of post-hardcore and even emo. A post-rock swell takes ‘New Despair’ firmly back to blackened territories, and to its credit, feels like a natural progression in extremity and emotional depth.
Drums veer from cataclysmic blasts to sparse, textural accompaniments to the richness of their post-rock riffs; the guitars explore shimmering leads straight out the Deafheaven playbook as well as frostbitten fury, and vocally it’s anguished, contemplative and screaming defiance, often all within the same song. Old Belief | New Despair successfully ups the ante on Mara | Mondrem in arresting fashion, exploring newer, richer pastures and sounds without losing sight of that overarching sense of yearning they conjure so well.