Maladie – Symptoms III

This was the last one I heard. And I was not prepared.

I put it on in the car, early morning—still dark, the faintest grey at the horizon, that liminal quiet before the day begins.

 

Exidium – The Innocent Child started.

The acoustic chords. The whistle. The saxophone.

The way the song bloomed—opened like a flower in low light.

And then Déhà's voice.

Not performance. A person. Unguarded. Tired. So unbearably tired.

And I felt it—that familiar collapse in my chest, that thing his voice does when it goes straight past my ears and lodges under my ribs.

 

There are strings underneath. Sadness, sheer and flattening.

It’s one of those songs that has your throat tighten without asking.

This is Déhà the way I love him so dearly.

 

Symptoms III is completely different from all the others.

It blindsided me.

By now, I’d been hit by extravagance, by avant‑garde chaos, by descent into madness, by pure joy and genius—but this one?

This one is personal. Stripped. Honest.

It’s not trying to impress. It just is.

It doesn't shout. It sits with you. Naming things you are taught not to name.

 

The second the vocals came in—I knew this one was going to hurt.

And I let it.

Piano chords—spaced, heavy. A saxophone line that sounds like it already knows the ending.

 

The lyrics cut like loss that still hasn’t scabbed over.

Not dramatic. Just devastating.

A grief so personal, it feels intrusive to listen to.

 

I don’t know if this is a love song or a eulogy. Probably both.

And I swear, there was a moment—hands tightening around the steering wheel, heart knocking too loud—I nearly pulled over.

 

"Nothing will ever shine like you [...]

but the warmth of the sun is forgotten

because of you."

 

This song doesn’t hold back. Not lyrically, not vocally.

And yet nothing about this feels indulgent. It’s just true.

Uncompromising in its honesty.

 

It’s the kind of song that leaves silence behind when it ends.

And you sit in it. For a long time.

If Nihilum is that quiet kind of heartbreak you can still breathe through, then Tenebrae is just a slow, steady unraveling.

 

This is something else.

This is quieter. Closer.

No singing. No build. Just a voice—tired, flat, honest—speaking into the dark.

 

Piano. Acoustic guitar. Nothing more.

And the words?

They aren’t lyrics.

They are the thoughts you’re never supposed to say out loud.

 

I can’t put it on lightly. Never.

Because this isn’t just music. This is confession.

 

The words are measured at first. Controlled. Almost calm.

 

"The more I think about it

the more I realise

that there is nothing left

that can lighten my path…"

 

The voice trembles.

You can hear the exhaustion before he even says it.

 

"I am too tired

and disenchanted

to continue fighting this battle."

 

There’s no performance here—just someone standing in the middle of their own breaking point, saying the quiet parts out loud.

 

The piano starts to shift.

It gets faster, urgent. Like a heartbeat trying to decide whether to keep going.

And the voice breaks.

Not figuratively—literally. It cracks. It sobs.

 

"I can’t anymore [...]

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to be anymore."

 

It’s not theatre. It’s not artifice.

It’s raw pain, given a microphone.

 

And I sat there—heart pounding, eyes burning—because I knew those words.

Because I’ve thought them. Because so many of us have.

 

Except I wasn’t sitting in some cinematic rain‑drenched room.

I was in my car.

In Hamburg commuter traffic.

Absolutely not in a safe emotional condition to be operating a vehicle. Great. Just great.

Mascara running, drivers staring, me clutching the steering wheel like it might hold me together.

Excellent. Full points for composure.

 

That’s the thing about Tenebrae.

It says the things we’re told never to say. The feelings we bury because they scare people. Because they make us feel like we’re too much. But here—someone dares to name them. To give them sound. To let them exist.

 

And that’s what makes it healing.

Not because it fixes anything.

But because it recognises you.

 

This isn’t a song.

It’s a moment of truth—the sound of someone’s darkest night, played out in real time.

And the most haunting thing is how human it is.

How much it understands.

The last two tracks don’t hurt. Not like the others. Not anymore.

We are past that now.

 

Inanimentum – Last Farewell opens with warmth—acoustic guitars, a soft bassline, drums just steady enough to be a heartbeat. Clean vocals return, carrying exactly what the title promises: the last farewell. There’s melody again. A rhythm. A sense of ground. And then the saxophone slides in, and for the first time in a while, it feels like maybe—maybe—everything might be okay again.

 

Decretum – The Passage closes the EP like a curtain drawn gently at the end of a long, hard day. It’s cinematic—strings rising and falling like breath. It’s the track for fixing your gaze at the horizon. For straightening your shoulders. For knowing—without needing to say it—that whatever lay behind you, you’ve left it there.

 

The drumming feels primal. There are soft synth choirs.

And in the very end, a saxophone that sounds like flapping bird wings.

Not soaring. Not triumphant.

Just—leaving. Quietly. Completely.

I didn’t see it coming. Was completely blindsided.

And while I loved Symptoms IV—and obsessed, deeply—this one is my favourite. No question.

It’s also Björn’s. The only position we could actually agree on when we ranked the Symptoms.

 

When we spoke, I asked him if it ever felt strange—how much this EP is shaped by Déhà’s voice.

Because it is. His vocals carry it. The songs feel like his.

 

But for Björn, it wasn’t even a question.

No hesitation. No need to think it through. Just a quiet, matter-of-fact "of course not."

Because he and Déhà? Soulmates. In life. In sound.

And that explains everything.