Review Summary: Death metal following the ABC rulebook and ending up in kid's land...
A lot of bands seem to float in some form of mediocrity, not standing out from their peers like another fish in a school of herring somewhere in the sea. This is what makes reviewing such a chore, especially in the metal genre: there are so many bands that sound like each other, and there are only so many chug riffs you can use; it’s like they all want to be like each other and sound like each other to be cool, instead of sounding like themselves. Comparisons can never be avoided, but sometimes they are just too close for comfort.
Derelict are one of these bands. And they don’t even seem to be good at it, either. Derelict happen to play death metal, an oversaturated genre full of bands doing the exact same thing, and when they do attempt to deviate from the norm, the stylistic changes are so useless and jarring that they would have been better off not changing at all. At their worst these moments are reminiscent of fellow Montreal metallers Unexpect (albeit without the grace or stylistic skill), and at other times they sound like something Devin Townsend or Opeth might veer into (again, with none of the expertise of said bands).
The rest of it is generic chugging death metal with a few harmonised melodies and licks thrown in. This doesn’t sound like new In Flames, it sounds more like what you might find on an old In Flames record, or an old Dark Tranquillity record, with slightly improved production values, but none of the hooks or skill. For lack of a better word, Derelict play boring death metal, as the down-tuned non-riffs seem to serve no other purpose than have a riff exist in the song (instead of writing engaging material). Occasionally a cool thing shows up, like the power-chord riffage of “Summoning the Firestorm”, but when the drummer veers back into incessant blast beats and the growler’s scream trails off over it, the whole effect of that chorus riff is diminished to zero.
I am sure these guys are talented players and all, and there is a bout of cool soloing on “Summoning the Firestorm” for example (which happens to be the best song on the album), but when the basic song structures and riffs are this weak, the technical effects just don’t come out right; they become ostentatious nonsense without a coherent framework to back up. Even something with the awesome lead melody of “Forth With the Herd”, is mercilessly run into the ground by repeating it ad nauseum for the six minute runtime of the song. There is just no sense of unity within the album: it feels like a loose collection of material, rather than an album, and the songs seem to really suffer as a result.
This begs the question: why does a band like this exist? Most likely, the metal scene will eat it up, as the spirit and fire of the members is probably there, but among the heaps and heaps of metal bands, this absolutely generic drivel does not stand out in any way. There is no reason for any metalhead to waste their time with this CD when they can spend it listening to something altogether more interesting, and while not completely awful apart from some excruciating lyrical passages:
“cut off their arms machete / cut off their legs / hack off their genitals and hang them up to bleed”, there is nothing at all to save this band from drowning in the oversaturated amount of releases that plague the metal scene today. Drown well, my friends.
4 drowning metalheads playing riffs out of 10 heard before songs.
