When I was a teenager working in a gas station, one of the
\nmechanics who was a friend of mine used to kid me about my love of
\nheavy metal. Every time he’d hear one of my tapes playing, usually
\nas I got in my car to leave for the day, he’d mock the music,
\nscreaming, “Aargh! Kill your mother and eat your dog!”<\/p>\n
After listening to
\nHate Campaign<\/i>, the latest release (and fifth full-length
\ndisc) from Sweden’s Dismember, I’m starting to think that my friend
\nhad a point. For 33 minutes, the listener is bombarded with a
\nnon-stop assault of speed metal and screams that barely pass for
\nvocals – so much so that it’s almost impossible for you to come up
\nfor air at all. It’s repetitive, it’s a bit boring… and it’s all
\nbeen done before, only better.<\/p>\n
Now, don’t get me wrong; I still love metal, especially speed
\nmetal. But vocalist Matti Karki and crew make it pretty difficult
\nto like Dismember on a number of counts. First is the rapid-fire
\nsuccession of the songs – I mean, there are times where I don’t
\nthink there’s even a miniscule break in the guitar chords to serve
\nas notice that the songs are changing from one to another. If I
\nhadn’t been paying attention to the display, I’d never have known
\nthat “Beyond Good & Evil” had ended and “Retaliate” had
\nstarted. What’s more, I probably wouldn’t have cared, because the
\ntunes sound so much alike – hence my description of boring. Only at
\nthe end, in the title track, is there any change worth noticing –
\nand by then, it’s too late.<\/p>\n
The second problem is the actual execution by the band. Karki is
\nso into screaming and growling out his vocal tracks that any
\nattempt at translation is immediately thrown out the window. This
\nmight seem like a double standard, seeing that I love the way that
\nNapalm Death’s Lee Dorian used to grunt out vocals – but at least
\nthat fit the mood of the music. In Dismember’s case, I would have
\nliked to have been able to understand Karki at least a few
\ntimes.<\/p>\n
The presentation of the music also isn’t the most stellar.
\nDrummer Fred Estby doesn’t sound like he’s quite cut out for the
\nworld of death or speed metal; so many other drummers could pound
\ncircles around him on just the kick drums alone. The two guitar
\nattack of David Blomqvist and Magnus Sahlgren just doesn’t
\nmaterialize the way one would hope that it would. It’s just too
\nchaotic for a band who have been on the scene long enough to know
\nbetter.<\/p>\n
Will
\nHate Campaign<\/i> dissuade me from listening to death or speed
\nmetal? Hardly; if anything, this disc helps me to appreciate the
\ngroups that have mastered the genre… and it serves as a reminder
\nthat not every band can handle it. Sadly, Dismember seems to be one
\nof those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6330],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-36622","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dismember","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36622"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36622"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}