Okay, I admit it. For as much as I have loved heavy metal since
\nI was 14 years old, and as much as I listen to thrash and death
\nmetal these days, sometimes it just seems like all this stuff
\nsounds the same… especially the death metal. You know the
\nformula: a thousand beats a minute, drum work that sounds like the
\npoor guy is having a seizure behind the kit, crunching guitars and
\nvocal grunts that you’d need the Rosetta Stone to decipher. Don’t
\nget me wrong, I still love metal, and I still like listening to
\nthrash and death metal, but I was starting to get a little worried
\nabout the genre.<\/p>\n
The last bunch of discs I’ve listened to have caused me to be
\nborn again. We talked about one of them yesterday with Bludgeon’s
\ndebut release. Now, Sweden’s Diabolical help to solidify my
\nnew-found faith in death metal, with their full-length debut
\nSynergy<\/i>. It’s similar to a lot of metal you might be used
\nto, but it’s much different in many other ways. Lead guitarist
\nVidar W. and crew throw several different styles at the listener,
\nbut they make it all sound so cohesive that it’s downright
\nscary.<\/p>\n
If you thought that metal this heavy had to be played at
\nlightning-quick speed – well, there’s some of that there, but
\nDiabolical prove that even a slower beat mixed in with the fast
\ntempos works just as well. The group (and I’m hoping I’ve put this
\ntogether right, culling the lineup from All-Music Guide) – Vidar
\nW., guitarist H. Carlsson, vocalist M. Odling, and bassist\/drummer
\n(yes, you read that right) L. Soderberg – challenges the standard
\nway listeners think about thrash metal, and damned if they don’t
\nmake a convincing argument in their favor.<\/p>\n
Tracks like “Suicidal Glory,” “Caged Wrath” and “Drowned In
\nBlood” all demonstrate that Diabolical has worked extremely hard to
\nget to the point they’re at, and that they’ve earned all the
\nrespect they’ve gotten in Europe. (
\nSynergy<\/i> was released in America back in October 2001 – six
\nmonths after they got it on the other side of the big drink.)
\nDiabolical has everything going in their favor – solid songwriting
\n(even if I’m still at a loss to describe what Odling is screaming
\nabout), mastery of the music and a top-notch production. (Plus, any
\ntime you can land album cover
\nartiste<\/i> Joe Petgano to do your artwork, it’s a master
\ncoup.)<\/p>\n
The only concern I have for Diabolical is that they may have set
\nthe bar too high for themselves. I know there is already a second
\nfull-length disc out in Europe (and, if they copy-protect it here
\nin the States like they did in Europe, we won’t touch it), but
\nDiabolical is going to have a difficult time living up to the
\nexpectations they have created thanks to this album. Can they do
\nit? I don’t doubt it… but it is a tough thing for any group to
\ndo.<\/p>\n
\nSynergy<\/i> is the kind of album that is great to put on when
\nyou’re feeling pissed at the world – and it will end up making you
\nfeel great. Diabolical is undoubtedly one of the more exciting
\nbands I’ve heard come down the pipe in a while, and I’ll be
\nexpecting great things from this group for many years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6734],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37373","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-diabolical","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37373","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=37373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37373"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37373"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}