Review Summary: dredg drop the angst and create an exceptional debut album.
People grow up. Fact. They mature from rebellious teenagers into sensible men and women full of life experience ready to tackle all the challenges that life throws at them. The same thing can be said about
dredg. Their first two EP’s were brash, angry and raw cuts of alternative metal full of de-tuned power chord riffs, harsh screaming, and repetitive lyrics. However, between the release of those EP’s and their full length debut,
Leitmotif, something happened; the band grew up. They were no longer pissed off, rebellious teenagers shouting their problems down a microphone amidst a sea of crunchy guitar riffs. They matured into adults, and as a result their music became much more refined, intelligent and progressive. As it stands,
Leitmotif is an exceptional debut album, showing progression and maturity, as well as just downright brilliant musicianship.
The main theme surrounding the album is, appropriately, the idea of change. As well as this, there is a concept that flows through the album about a man who has to travel from place to place to cure a spiritual disease that plagues him, however the lyrics are left open enough to imply more meanings other than just the singular concept. In actuality the lyrics play a minor role in the album as it is mainly instrumentally based. A total of six out of the ten songs here are instrumentals comprising of: four interludes, a centerpiece, and an ambient closing track; and while it can seem a tad over-encumbering at times,
dredg manage to hold our interest with catchy riffs, intuitive drumming, and some bizarre yet appropriate instrument choices. The centerpiece (
Traversing Through the Artic Cold...) shows this well: building up with a catchy acoustic guitar melody and ambient vocal chants, eventually hitting its peak before switching to a crackled radio broadcast and some spacey keyboard sections.
The best songs on the album, however, are the four non-instrumentals:
Symbol Song,
Lechium,
Penguins in the Desert, and
Yatahaze; possibly because they have more structure and are easier to listen to, but also because, as previously mentioned, the instrumentals can seem over-bearing at times. There's a great amount of variation to each of these songs as well; while
Symbol Song and
Yatahaze employ a stripped-down, heavier version of the melodic alternative rock sound that would be used in
dredg's later albums,
Penguins in the Desert and
Lechium take a step back into the band's aggressive past with some crunchy riffs and screamed vocals.
Despite all this,
Leitmotif does have a few flaws. The interludes, while not awful, tend to outstay their welcome and could have easily been cut short, or in the case of
Movement I, removed completely. Also, at this point in his career, Gavin hadn't fully realised his potential and talent as a vocalist, as such he often sounds restrained and weak, almost as if he's struggling to project his voice over the rest of the band. Saying this, the style he uses fits the music quite well, but that doesn't take away the fact that he is capable of much more, as we would later hear on
El Cielo and
Catch Without Arms.
There's no denying, regardless of these flaws, that
Leitmotif is an amazing album. It almost completely abolished the nu-metal sound of their E.P's and showed that
dredg were a band with heaps of potential to progress further and mature their sound into something greater than it already was. This was the major turning point in their career, when they dropped the angst and started writing consistent full-length albums filled with genuinely brilliant songs. From here on out, things could only get better for the band.
