De Profundis (not to be confused with the milestone album done by Vader) perform a progressive sort of funeral doom metal. Heralding from the UK the group's job with their second album, "A Bleak Reflection", is to make the listener feel depressed while still trying to put interesting spins on their music while being slowly extreme. The opening track is basically an introduction: quiet, bleak, sad, and depressing. It sets the tone but when "Ablaze In Autumn's Fire" comes on the music sounds nothing like the introduction. It is mid paced doom metal with death metal styled drumming and dark, evil vocals that growl in the style of Rapture, Mourning Beloveth and Funeral. If it wasn't for the jazzy, progressive moments from the guitar that sound completely out of place with the rest of the music, this would just be mediocre doom metal and nothing to get excited about. However, De Profundis has enough interesting interludes throughout their songs to keep listeners from being completely bored.
Many of the tracks on "A Bleak Reflection" are epic, so it takes a lot of interest to want to listen through the entire song. While most of the music here is repetitive riffs and growled vocals that don't really change in pitch, there are a few acoustic moments aside from the droning whine of the jazz guitar/bass. "Nocturnal Splendor" has an acoustic guitar moment with a few spoken word elements before things go back to the death doom style. "The Longing" begins with a great progressive acoustic/electric guitar section that sounds like something Opeth would do. It is an entirely instrumental piece so there's no vocals to ruin the music. Once fans are actually given a chance to listen to how musically good De Profundis is at being able to perform their genre, minus the vocals which sometimes overtake everything, a new appreciation can be found in the sense that maybe the group is more than just an average prog death doom band. The final track on the album is one of the better progressive metal songs because it balances the heavy aspects with plenty of progressive moments such as melodic interludes and plenty of the jazz bass guitar. It certainly makes the epic aspect of the song worth bearing. Even the pace of the more metal side of the song has been cranked up a bit so it doesn't sound so slow, repetitive and depressing. There's even a good rhythmic session near the end that is sure to get crowds at concerts excited before calming things down with an acoustic section that is very similar to the introductory track.
This album isn't the most progressive wonder on the planet, but it does a good job at being more than just some generic piece of metal. Fans of Ihsahn or My Dying Bride will probably like this a lot. If De Profundis take things one step further in their prog metal direction then these guys could become unstoppable. The longer songs can be hard to stomach, but it's worth listening to them just for the rare acoustic moments.
