[Album Review]: SICK SAD WORLD (France) - ‘Deuil’ LP.
Artist: Sick Sad World
Album: Deuil
Location: Nantes, France
Release Date: 1st October, 2025
Label: Independent Release
Genre: Post-Metal
Writer: Hamza Siddiqi
(NB: See bottom of article for artist/label links)
SICK SAD WORLD - DEUIL
Full disclosure - I'm uncomfortable writing negative reviews. I've been writing reviews for a while, and I've often wondered - how do I write a negative review without coming off as a dick? It is definitely the case that I find most of the new music I listen to to be pretty "meh." If my ultimate enjoyment and appreciation of an album had a fill gauge, the vast majority that I listen to would only get me halfway to burst limit. And yet, I always try to find something good to say about a lot of the bands I'm saddled with reviewing, all the time bitching about how modern music reviewing (especially in the metal space) has become a hugbox. It comes from a good place, I think. I don't want to shit on small bands.
Sick Sad World is a post-metal band from France, and the metal-encyclopaedia says that they've been around since 2007. Deuil is their third album. I have not heard the first two. This definitely sounds like post-metal, the more metallic, hardcore-y type. Less sludgy, although there are definitely bits of that in there too. It's mid-pace and it takes its’ time but not too much of it, sitting at just under 41 minutes. It's on the strummy, as opposed to chuggy, side of things, and the band likes to ride on chord progressions that are sometimes clashing and dissonant, and sometimes not - the genre's characteristic "light and shade", or what-have-you. Rhythms are smooth. Vocals are diverse, and the harsh vocals are competent. The album goes down really easy.
You've probably picked up on this by now - and with apologies to Sick Sad World - I'm kind of indifferent to Deuil, and basically leaning towards the negative. It isn't a bad album by any means, but I can't really think of any reasons to recommend it. If you're *really* into post and will listen to basically anything with reverb and clashing notes, then you might get something out of this. But at the end of the day, there isn't much you couldn't hear done better on a Cult of Luna or Amenra album. It's fine, and I guess I enjoyed my time with it - but I can't imagine listening to it ever again after today. There isn't much in the way of ear-candy, musically it's unadventurous, and as for the concept, well...
Okay, so the press release informs that the album is "a 41-minute immersive journey through the five stages of grief," but when you look at the track names (there are five) this is very immediately obvious, and, if the idea kinda makes me gag just on principle, the execution just in that fact turned me off. 'Deuil' means "mourning" or "bereavement”. Someone in Sick Sad World experienced a loss recently, and that sucks, and I respect the act of taking those feelings and putting them into art. All bad art springs from genuine feeling, after all - and hell, I feel bad about shitting on said art. But this is just not an inspired concept, and the execution is pedestrian enough that I could have listened to the album multiple times and not noticed there even *was* a concept, if it wasn't for... ugh, "Denial-Bargaining-Depression-Anger-Acceptance." Yuck.
Link to stream for opening track ‘Denial’ from Deuil, via Youtube:
Lyrics? I'm not a lyric guy. I could be that guy, but not now, and not here. I'll just say that the fact that English is not Sick Sad World's first language is definitely apparent. Also, the diversity of the (harsh) vocals mostly make up for it.
Ultimately, writing reviews for me is an exercise in self-reflection and self-expression. I can't only write positively, because that would be dishonest. I think I'm kinda of damned if I do, and though I could definitely not do, that would be self-erasing, so fuck it. If I'm a dick, and I'm hard to please, why pretend otherwise? So there - Deuil is... I mean, it's alright. It got the fill gauge up halfway, so there's *something* there. But I like music to surprise or stimulate me in some way, and Deuil just didn't do that. I do like the Daria reference, though.
Speaking of TV curmudgeons - anyone ever watch Loudermilk?
