Review Summary: Death Before Dishonor delivers an uninspiring and boring album, at best.
Death Before Dishonor is "Boston Hardcore at it's finest! [sic]", according to themselves (and nobody else). They even refer to themselves as "BOSTON'S HARDEST" (nobody else does that either)... errr...
They're rather obsessed with being extremely hardcore, and definitely more hardcore than anybody else. On their MySpace - there's several paragraphs dedicated to how "hardcore" and "good" they are, and how they put all the other bands out there "to shame".
At first, I though this was supposed to be funny, like a parody or something. Therefore I was really eager to get
Count Me In, expecting something like
Excrementory Grindfuckers, only more hardcore punk oriented. What I got instead, was a mediocre band that takes itself way to seriously.
This album is full of rather heavy and dirty metalcore riffs. It starts out with a pretty cool riff on the "Intro". Sadly, this seems to be the very same guitar riff they recycle and work around on every single track on
Count Me In. Each song sound essentially very much like the next song. The only thing that really makes you feel like there's any progression at all, is the fact that the drums get somewhat heavier along the way. The shredding is pretty dirty and at times quite heavy, but not exactly groundbreaking or breathtaking. You'll surely be bored to tears by track three, "Nowhere To Turn". Honestly, would anyone even notice if the first three tracks were mixed into one? I think not.
The drummer is not all that impressive. He does a lot of pretty standard stuff, but at least he keeps the melody somewhat flowing. He even plays some neat fills from time to time. The bass guitarist is unnoticeable on the calmer parts, invisible on the noisier parts. The band has two people handling the beforehand mentioned electric guitars, both of which are equally depressing. There is nothing on this album that will even come close to satisfying a fan of insane shredding, nor a fan of magic chord progression. There's no harmonies, riffs or patterns really worth mentioning. It's all been done so many times before, I get surprised every time I realise that somebody's actually doing it yet another time.
DBD's vocalist is not very appealing at all. July 7, 2006,
Justin Timberlake brought sexy back. May 22, 2007, this guy scares it away again. Not only is his voice the quite opposite of charming, it's just something about his singing technique that makes the listener feel really tense - not in a good way.
But kudos to Death Before Dishonor for trying out some "call and response", quite reminiscent of
A Fire Inside. These guys unfortunately don't pull it off as nicely as AFI does. There's something about the execution that just isn't right.
In addition to these uninteresting performances of musicianship, there's immature and what seems to be forced lyrics to keep them company. The most natural thing to compare the words uttered on
Count Me In to is
Aiden, and perhaps the first
My Chemical Romance album. But where Aiden and My Chemical Romance actually suggest to mean the words, DBD's vocalist creates a forced and laughable atmosphere that doesn't sound the slightest bit genuine. It's like you are listening to a band trying their hardest to be sad and angry, though they have nothing in the world to complain about. It almost reminds me of
Korn, a band that's still surfing the teenage angst stuff. But lets not be to cruel now...
Together, these six elements produce a pretty dull and repetitive album, not capable of catching anybody's attention. They could easily mix twelve of the songs together into three songs, and nobody would even dream of thinking that this was made up of twelve totally different pieces. Because they aren't totally different pieces. Actually, they sound ridiculously the same. And they could without trouble have been recorded by just about any below average metalcore act out there.
To be quite honest, the only song that's even on the verge of catching any attention is the thirteenth song, the
Cock Sparrer cover, surprisingly enough entitled "Boston Belongs To Me". And the attention they will receive for this cover, if any, is not a positive one. They absolutely kill the classic "England Belongs To Me", with an awkward performance by the guitarists, and horrible vocals. It's simply devastating to listen to.
Conclusion:
Count Me In is a very boring listen.
Everybody who's a bit into punk and/or metal will find that this doesn't stand out as something that you'll remember for the rest of your life, or indeed the rest of your day. If you ever try to look for this, you will regret wasting your time on this symbol of mediocre musicianship. This is not interesting, good or original.
There are some listenable throw downs in between, and a few spots that aren't exactly awful - but it never makes it beyond "just listenable".
On Death Before Dishonor's MySpace, it says: "Brutality is not something easily committed to tape", and they've certainly proven themselves right. It takes more of an effort than this.
Count Me Out.
