Ok so do you remember the band Aeturnus who had an album out called From Blackest Darkness? You may not have heard the CD itself but maybe you remember the reviews were kind but not really good. Or maybe you did hear the album. To inform those who don't know or to remind those who forgot, it was an under produced album of very mediocre to below average death metal.
Dirge is the band that arose from the remains of Aeturnus. Pulling on influences from hardcore and groove metal mainly Dirge is as bad as Aeturnus ever thought about being.
What we have here is a 4 song demo CD by the band that is home burned and printed. Not that this can't be done well after all the Sapientia CD is home burned/printed and it's a great CD. However the production on this CD is extremely low. The guitars are pretty much annoying. They hit some groove crunch that is ok but most of the time it gets covered up with Korn style squealing parts or some other strange effect.
The worst part of the music is the vocals. I'm not sure if the vocals are really this bad or if the low production are making them worse than they really are. The end product however are vocal tracks that ruin any chance of making this CD listenable.
Track 4 on this CD almost pulls it out of the fire however. Opening with some crazy sample from a movie or tv show somewhere the drums come in full kicking double bass, and the guitars shred. The music settles into a really nice crunchy groove and the vocals come in...maybe this should have been an instrumental.
The songs lyrics are all pretty good, I've got to give props to the guys for keeping true to their God so strongly in their songs. However there is still a complaint in this department too. That's right, we've got a competitor for silliest lyrics in Dirge. From track one "Taken" you have:
Why do I do
What I do
What I don't want to do?
I do what I don't want to do.
Doesn't sound silly to you? Try saying it real fast like it is on the CD...you will feel like you're trying to do some tongue twister.
I hate trashing strong Christian efforts I really do, but this CD is really not worth listening to.
2/10
Other coverage for this album
Dead Zine 2003Reviewed by SORGHeavy groove-core with rap-core influences. This is kinda hard to categorize and I suppose that is a good thing. The music is heavy and has a ton of groove with some Korn-style tweak to it. I actually like this cd quite a bit and hear a lot of potential here. Dirge has a more aggressive sound than bands like Gryp and Travail (however Travail is a better unit overall). The vocals do get emotional…
