Album Review: Deep Fade – Oblivion Spell for #MetalChronicles

Artist: Deep Fade
Title: Oblivion Spell
Label: Phage Tapes
Release date: March 28th, 2024
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High-quality digital recording

Album Review: Deep Fade – Oblivion Spell via Phage Tapes for #MetalChronicles by Pegah

“Oblivion Spell” by Amanda Votta (Deep Fade) is an album dedicated to women who have been suppressed throughout history. Even its cover art, which depicts an eclipse, serves as a powerful symbol: the sun—the source of life and light—momentarily obscured. Yet an eclipse also carries a deeper meaning beyond darkness alone; it represents a transformative moment, a pause in time that allows for blossoming, evolution, and renewal.

The album opens with harsh, abrasive noises—a punch to the face, like a sudden wave of pain spreading through the body. It evokes the terror and isolation of being alone in darkness, on the way back home. It brings to mind the women who were subjected to violence simply because they were unseen, swallowed by the dark, with no one to hear their screams and no one left to help them. The female vocal in “Possessor” fades amid layers of sound, feeling like the voices of suppressed women who were never given the chance to defend their own rights. Their voices are lost, sentenced to silence.

The title track, “Oblivion Spell”, grows increasingly harsh, with layers of sound overlapping one another—much like the multiple struggles women are forced to endure simultaneously. Yet their suffering often goes unseen, their stories fading into obscurity. It is time to break this spell of oblivion; it is time to be seen and heard. The soundscape in “Mirror of Disappearance” feels like being swallowed by a storm—pulled into the void of life itself. The track’s title carries a striking paradox: while a mirror is meant to reflect and reveal, a symbol of self-awareness and visibility, here it becomes a place of erasure, where one can disappear and turn invisible. It also suggests the way we gradually forget ourselves. This sense of collapse leads to a kind of entropy—a state of uncertainty about life and being, where clarity of self begins to dissolve.

The closing track, “To Fire You Come at Last”, feels openly rebellious, even quietly hopeful, promising purification and transformation after being pushed to the margins. It suggests a possible end to the cycles of violence, suppression, and ignorance directed toward women. 8/10

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8/10 To Greatness and Glory!
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