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| Daemonic: The Art of Dantalian |
Today's review subject, Veld, is my first stab at a band from the Republic of Belarus, a former Soviet Republic.
Boy have the maps changed in Europe since I was a young boy learning geography.
It's very strange to think of this kind of music coming out of Belarus. Just because death metal is so very, very western and something that greatly personifies American Culture....anything that's worth doing....
Is worth way overdoing, and bam you have death metal. I've yet to visit Eastern Europe, though it's on my bucket list, but I see those countries as far more spartan than what we are used to here in the USA, and that's just what I see in my mind, but let's move on to the music...
Veld's brand of death metal is vaguely unfamiliar.
Of course the death metal conventions are all here. The vocals are harsh and growled nearly all of the time.
The guitars are nimble, acrobatic, and shred up a storm, nearly all of the time, but then there's those arpeggios that seemingly appear all over the place.
The drums feature blastbeats played faster than a rabbit's heartbeat, nearly all of the time.
The riffs are rough, brash, and heavy. Their roughness also encompasses a certain slickness that make them far easier on the ear than many other bands in the genre.
Aside from the standard death riffing chugga chugga, there's also a goodly amount of dissonant riffing that goes against the grain of the vocals, but then they release off into melody lines.
Of course the solos are liquid personified. Played by the fingers of the damned they are.
From time to time, it appears that the band has forgotten precisely what kind of music they're playing because the shifts in timbre are mind bending.
The percussion often breaks into Sepultura like precision, but the kind that's featured in songs like Kaiowas.
There's an interlude (intermission?) song in the center of the album that's made up of beautifully played acoustic arpeggiated chords.
Veld succeeds in avoiding the trap all too many death metal bands fall into: monotony.
That's why this album is awesome. It's easy to write a great death metal riff, but it's very hard to create a gripping death metal album.
Release: 4/8/15
Genre: Death Metal
Label: Lacerated Enemy Records
are the best songs,the lacered enemy records.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the first time I've heard one of theirs.
DeleteI certainly did love it though!