_Décade(nt)_ is practically a reissue of the band's debut album _Eponym_, released independently in 2003, plus some live recording and a couple of brilliant cover songs (a Type O Negative track and one by the French poet / singer / philosopher Serge Gainsbourg), making this 80-minute album (dubbed as "compilation" by the label, for some odd reasons) a worthwhile purchase, a peeping hole into the secret life of this sonic curiosity; the pale-faced, elegantly-dressed, French gentlemen who are Wormwood.

Mixing varied styles of musical approaches, Wormwood are a very interesting listen due to the fact their eclectic style sounds so fresh and dark and tight. Each song bears its own singular stamp, be it gothic-oriented, death or black-metal-oriented or simply avant-garde oddity on display, every and all aspects of the music are impressive, to say the least.

Every which way you look, each direction the band decided to take, almost on an ad-hoc basis, they do it to the hilt, maximizing the impact each track produces with a powerful sound, grand, spacious, punchy production, an excellent monstrous vocalist in whose capacity are also his superb abilities to change vocal tones and styles within a blink of the eye, and the general dark aura and the sweet stench of decadence enshrouding the whole of the album.

And dark this album is, with its streak of madness, its sewer-dwelling aesthetics, its dark and twisted romanticism. Distinctively French, the recording has a cabaret feel to it; a theatrical essence, where bombast clashes with esoterica and circus bright colours clash with monochrome, pale and bleak vampirism.

Be they gothic/thrash, gothic/black, gothic/death, all of the aforementioned or none of the aforementioned, Wormwood are definitely a singular musical entity who were ahead of their time, originally recording this very album some ten odd years ago. Even by today's standards it sounds extraordinary, pungent, fresh and unique, giving the term 'gothic' a macabre and dark meaning, along the lines of great names who have paved the way for this horror/goth sub-sub-sub genre -- such as Abysmal Grief, Mortuary Drape, Monumentum, Cultus Sanguine and to a lesser extent also Moonspell with their monumental album _Irreligious_, where ungodly essence has been painted with the colours of dark romanticism, morbid eroticism and the sweet allure of death.