Genre bashing
Swedish four-piece, DimmZ, have been working extremely hard get to this stage. "Still Human?" is their first release since they have signed to Sliptrick Records/Warner and it arrives to a huge expectancy.
The album kicks off with 'Sweet Dreams', providing a solid Motorhead groove. Sonny Andersson on the vocals, reminds me a lot of James Hetfield, however don't expect a Metallica-sounding band. With the heavy rock groove, the first track is accompanied with some delicious fret burning licks provided by Sonny and Andreas Eriksson; whilst the solid drumming is contributed by Andreas Karlsson who, along with Jens Akesson on the bass, completes the line-up
The Metallica influence does come through strongly on the intro to 'Addiction', but strangely the band manages to do this without actually sounding like Metallica. The dark lyrics and even darker growling vocals, forces the song to drill deep into your soul whilst discussing the serious matter of addiction. Again there are some awesome solo works on the guitars. This is a top song and probably my second favourite on the album. This brings us to the fourth track, 'Bye Bye Baby', which is my favourite song! It kicks of as a gentle mesmerising tune and the guest vocals, provided by Erika Jansson, is absolutely angelic. The highlight is when Sonny transforms the song with his gentle background vocals exploding with a growl obviously emanating from the underworld; and changing the whole dynamics of the song. The collaboration of sweet angelic vocals and deep dark metal growls works well and combined with a dark theme and music; and great guitar solos, you have a certain hit. The only thing stopping this song from being a classic would be due to lack of exposure and this would be a crying shame as the song is extremely radio friendly and should be played on all radio stations.
'My Guitar' is an interesting title and topic, but is heartfelt. I almost expected it to be an instrumental, but it's an ode to sex, drugs and Rock 'n Roll; and should offer some great inspiration to any young aspiring musician. This is how you want to live your life. The final track, 'As we die', is dark and heavy. Chugging guitars, growling vocals and bashing drums, completed with another and final fret burning solo, it makes for the perfect closure to a great album. "You will die and so will I, but at least I've proved my point."
This is a genre bashing album and we can not pigeonhole DimmZ. I would say somewhere between Thrash and Rock. When Sonny growls he pierces your brain but when he sings with clean vocals, he squeezes the blood from your heart. All and all "Still Human?" is a great album and is very catchy, providing you with plenty of those random humming tunes during the day.