Review Summary: A unique album within the death metal scene that flies under the radar.
Album art can tell you a lot of things about how the music on a particular album sounds before you even hear it. Take a look at the album cover for Dark Millennium's
Diana Read Peace, now I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it gives you an outter space, extraterrestrial vibe right? Well just imagine that translated into music form.
This band is labeled as a death metal band and that's where the core of their sound comes from, but to limit this album to just call it death metal would just be wrong. There's heavy doom and progressive metal influences throughout the entire duration of the album. Riffs here aren't extremely fast as much as they are atmospheric. Heavy death metal riffage is featured, but a lot of the riffs would be more accurately described as progressive. Think of the sound of an album such as
Symbolic and put a spacey twist on them and that's a lot of what you hear here. The vocals are very fitting as well, not a low growl like we hear from a lot of death metal, but more of a throaty shout is what's displayed here as well as what almost sounds like crooning during slower parts.
Another thing about this album is that the length is longer than what death metal fans may be used to. While most albums in the genre are in between 30-40 minutes, this album clocks in at 1 hour and 2 minutes long. If you're newer to the genre, that could be a turn off for you, but seasoned vets should be used to it by now. The key of this album being so good is that it keeps you interested the entire time. Not once will you find yourself bored, even during the longer tracks.
Diana Read Peace is an album that has so much atmosphere, so many rifffs and twists and turns, that it's hard to find something to not enjoy.
Basically, if you're a fan of more progressive death metal, you'll eat this up. Fans of a bit of doom in their metal will also find plenty of things to love about this album. Hopefully this review will turn more people onto a gem within the death metal scene that seems to be under appreciated.
