Daath metal
Daath or Da'at as everyone out there knows is a Hebrew word for knowledge and can be found in the Jewish Kabbalah. This has no bearing on the review but hopefully it helps me look smarter than I am due to the power of Google.
Now, where were we? Oh yes my favourite bit; the press release. According to this un-missable piece of writing 'The Hinderers' "is a strong return to the classic death metal sound that ruled the scene in the early 90's" This set me up for an incomprehensible dirge of noise that was recorded in someone's bedroom for £4.50 including lunch. Why so many people hark back to those days is beyond me, the 'scene' was a bunch of guys making poorly recorded demos and passing them to each other on old C90 cassettes complete with biro labels and the last thing to be recorded on it rumbling in the background.
This review, should it ever get started, will read a little negative as I keep pointing out all the things that don't fit into the classic death mould, but I'm sure you've seen the score by now and are wondering why it's a high one... read on.
Bang! This album leaves the blocks like a drugged up Olympic sprinter in a heavy metal juggernaut of a song called Subterfuge. Not a Death metal juggernaut you understand, it has the death style vocals but it's far too mainstream a song to fool any Norwegians. This has Black leather jackets but not the full black and white face paint if you catch my drift. Subterfuge also happens to be the first single off the album and a good choice it is too.
Production wise again this is far too good to be 90's death/black, for a start you can hear instruments and vocals in harmony on this instead of a muffled mess of Satan worship gear grinding, production is great throughout this album, they must have forgotten to mess it up in time for the release.
OK enough of the mock erm... mocking of this fine piece of metal mayhem, this is a finely crafted semi death metal album that showcases brutal, intelligent song writing mixed with great production and cleverly interwoven melodies to create an album that just when you think you've got it pigeon holed changes direction enough to prick your ears up.
A few songs in and I have it down as a very heavy metal album, albeit one with keyboards adding atmosphere and tinkly bits. A black metal band would just look on a keyboardist as something to eat. Then the album starts to mutate, the keyboards become a little more obvious and come to the front a little more, strange electronic pops creep in from somewhere in the 1980's, some of the songs start to take on an orchestral feel. By track nine they pull out a track you could almost dance to and on song eleven they go full blown electropop with metal guitar and death vocals called 'Dead on the dancefloor' that would have them jumping about at rock clubs.
Now please don't get the wrong idea here, none of the changes this album goes through make it any less of a super heavy kick in the head that would scare your granny witless. All I'm saying is that to pigeonhole them as Death/Black metal is wrong and misleading. Fair play to the press release when later it does say this is a "classic, progressive and technical death metal album."
Now Death metal is becoming more mainstream (don't stone me) we are seeing bands expanding the genre, such as Phazm and now Daath which is a good thing. I highly recommend it anyone who is a little tired of the usual death stuff and wonders where it can go.
You can find more out about Daath here.