Review Summary: I was put into a world of pain hearing this.
I don't think there are many metal genres out there quite as polarizing as depressive black metal. While it has many fans and plenty of bands that do a good job of preforming it, it seems that many also see it as "emo" music and a complete slap in the face to black metal in general. I personally see the genre in a more positive light, as I think black metal is perfect for these kind of emotions. It's bleak, cold and dark sound and atmosphere make it a perfect outlet for feelings of depression, loss, mourning and suicide. And yet so few bands seem to actually pull that off. Sure, there are a few DSBM bands who manage to succeed in these goals, many fall short and end up sounding pretentious, unable to put the listener into the emotional state they try to convey. Unfortunately, Happy Days has a tendency to fall closer to the latter category, not quite as much as other bands in the genre, but enough to where it needs work. However the first demo by this project "A World of Pain" is so off the mark on pretty much every aspect of it that it's laughable a lot of the time and just cringe worthy all the time.
Music wise, if you know anything about BM, then this will yield nothing new as this is pretty straightforward. No real surprises are to be found and it pretty much sticks to a run of the mill formula. That being said, that's only if you can actually hear what the hell is going on, as the production is so mind numbingly bad that half the time nearly every aspect of the music sounds like plain white noise. I know this is just a self made demo, so of course its not gonna have crisp, clear mixing but I mean seriously, I don't think I've ever heard mixing this noisy before. First off the guitars; They are so thin and quiet sounding that it almost sounds like they're non existent. All it is is basically just a light buzzing deep in the background that sounds something closer to static than an actual guitar tone. Coming next is the drums which, while aren't overly loud, boom over the guitars (naturally) and make them that much quieter. The vocals on the other hand, are ridiculously loud to an annoying degree, overpowering everything else, making the whole mix feel sloppy and awkward and just like some guy screaming into a mic with some light static in the background.
After a few listens, the music becomes a bit more comprehensible. Eventually after a few play throughs, beneath the white noise production, you can make out (albeit barely) the guitars, only to realize just how uninspired the music actually is. The riffs are uninspired and uninteresting, the vocals are obnoxious and the atmosphere and emotional vibe is synthetic and forced. The sound that is put together is generally completely uninterested in itself, and every song feels like all its doing is just going through the motions and not really giving a *** about anything it's doing. But beside the unimaginative riffs and bored vibe, the vocals stick out in particular as unlikable. While the rasps are decent sounding enough, they are made annoying to listen to by the just how loud they are. Adding to that and the main thing that puts the vocals in a negative light for me are these high pitched "whooo!" yells or howls that A. Morbid does from time to time. To be honest, these are pretty laughable sounding and sinks any and all potential this demo had of being taken seriously, as when hearing it for the first time, I genuinely found it funny. This is a point made worse by the fact that its in a genre supposed to convey a sense of hopelessness and depression, not something that most human beings connect with general amusement. I know what he was trying to do was to make it sound like he was howling in misery, but all it sounds like is a guy yelling obnoxious noises into a mic.
Overall, this was a pretty bad release and awful way to first start showing off your music to the world. It has some of the worst production I've ever heard and if one can get passed that, the music itself is unimaginative, overly simplistic and completely uninteresting. Happy Days would go on to make some very likable material (such as the fantastic "Cause of Death: Life") but this demo is one to skip entirely
