Built on the foundations of significant personal tragedy, pervasive misery, unimaginable pain and the devastating effects of isolation, STAKE’s mercurial new album LOVE, DEATH and DECAY takes you through a grieving and mourning process unlike any other. It serves as a reminder to remember the struggles as the world returns to some semblance of normality. Brutal realism intertwines itself with gothically romantic themes of love and death, as the Belgian quartet look to process the unprecedented chaos that has happened in the last two years.
Having rebranded themselves as STAKE in 2018 (moving away from their cumbersome former band name Steak Number Eight) as a conclusion to Brent Vanneste’s mourning process of losing his brother, the band certainly haven’t left it all in the past, which LOVE, DEATH and DECAY testifies to. Crammed with visceral emotion and frantic, intense riffing and eerily melancholic atmospherics, LOVE, DEATH and DECAY is a monument to the abject misery of modern life. Compared to the band’s previous album Critical Method, which showcased more technical, Mastodon-esque riffing, LOVE, DEATH and DECAY leans into the sonic realms that are reminiscent of a classic Deftones records. There is a significant amount of depth and layering to this album that you can’t possibly begin to comprehend it all in one listen, yet through all of this is the all to familiar sensations of hopelessness and despair.
It is incredibly easy to loose yourself within the darkness of this album, yet you see the benign beauty in the fragility of life through all the chaos and tragedy. The spectral figures of life and death bedecked in white and black robes respectively is conjured up in your mind, walking hand in hand through every conceivable type of scenery simultaneously creating and destroying everything they touch. While STAKE’s music is introspective and personal, the themes displayed on LOVE, DEATH and DECAY feels like the band’s most honest and open release to date. The emotional depth of the album is indescribable yet it makes it significantly more accessible. Channelling complex emotions that come with grief and isolation is something that we have all had to learn to do in some capacity over the few years, it feels safe to say that LOVE, DEATH and DECAY is the most accurate, sonic and musical representation of that process.
Musically, the album fuses together shoegaze atmospheres with crushing, weighty riffs and haunting synth atmospheres. As the album progresses each song blooms into life, and by the end you are left with unique bouquet of musical flowers, each a different species and colour yet they are effortlessly compatible together. Despite some of the album’s solemn misery, there is some semblance of hope. ‘Deliverance Dance’ and ‘Zone Out’ are pride examples of this, with an uneasy dreaminess to them before it launches quite pugnaciously into the discordant, spiralling track ‘F*ck My Anxiety’. The sometimes violent transitions between big, chaotic riffs to delicate, spacey melodies mirrors the turbulent human emotions that are associated with the album’s themes. Prime examples of this point are ‘Queen In The Dirt’ and ‘Deadlock Eyes’, hefty breakdowns are juxtaposed by soft, solemn yet ominous chorus melodies and haunting atmospheres.
STAKE have created something intensely artistic out of their sorrow yet it consistently remains open to new interpretations with each listen through. LOVE, DEATH and DECAY feels like more than just an album, it is an extraordinarily concentrated look into the human psyche through the mediums of brutal realism and seemingly gothic romanticism. The overarching message however is that everybody dies sometime, so sit back and enjoy your fragile existence while you still have it.