Way To End ‎"Desecrated Internal Journey" CD

The debut of French Way to End is an apocryphal, depressive work of torment, weaving patterns of hypnotic discord like an abyssal spinster, each thread revealing a morbid, hidden delight. Imagine a slower, more restrained alternative to Deathspell Omega, and you may begin to understand what this band is creating. Desecrated Internal Journey is an apt title, as this album carries enough emotional moments to catalyze your regrets and impart a morose sorrow. In other words, a great chance to sip some absinthe and mourn your life and the world.
The riffing is somewhat complex, in that it rarely settles into a repetitious pattern: that would only lighten the unease that Way to End is attempting to establish. The dark ambient intro "Facing the Abyss" gives in to a saloon-like piano, before the bristling of "A Step Into the Void", which begins to unravel the psyche with its wandering bass lines, and the creepy but entertaining riffs which conjure a subtle and shining atmosphere of futility. This feeling never lets up through the remainder of the album; through the glorious pomp that christens "At the Threshold" to the album's largely acoustical, instrumental send-off "No Dreams". A full 40 minute trip into the misery and limits of the flesh, the bruising of the soul and the taunting of failed youthful dreams.
Desecrated Internal Journey has an expressive mix which captures the voluminous swell of its backing vocals amidst the broiling guitar chaos and haunted rasp of Hazard. The bass playing is superb for this band, creating a substrata of inescapable horror that will swallow any who decide they want to 'burrow out' of the album's terrifying recollections. This is a different kind of 'depressive' than the bathroom mixing majority of bands who claim the title; it is professional, and pandering, and ready to kill anyone who crosses its path.

Simultaneously sensory overload and sensory depravation, WAY TO END's "Desecrated Internal Journey" is everything its title promises... and more. With alchemical magick otherwise elusive to the impoverished, unwashed herds, WAY TO END weave sinuous, disarmingly dissonant spells of elevated-consciousness composition, "Black Metal" the starting point but by no means the end of their journey. In fact, these French enigmas bask in The Infinite, the "more" that equals more/more/more: "Desecrated Internal Journey" is the path they walk, the path on which they beckon the listener/vessel. Writhing and wending, contorting and distorting, it very literally is a WAY TO END.

As a whole, "Desecrated Internal Journey" is as engaging as it is abrasive. Don't let the mental fits and starts fool you into thinking that a deeper diabolical agenda isn't involved though (Blabbermouth)

“Desecrated Internal Journey” is by far one of the best Black Metal albums of 2009, and being the band’s first release I can’t wait for their next album. (Infernal Masquerade)

'Desecrated Internal Journey' is a stunning and deceptively mature debut from a band who could have a successful future if they continue to craft works of this calibre. Greatly recommended to anyone with ears to listen (Avantgarde-metal)

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