When a death metal band can effective channel every aspect of its instrumentation to create an atmosphere or feeling, it’s an accomplishment to be proud of. And that’s a very strong point upon listening to Dead Syndicate’s The Carrion Creed, even right from the start. The album plays out like a twisting nightmare with screams of terror and a roller-coaster ride of grinding riffs and double-bass.

It’s also clear from the beginning that the driving instrumentation of this album is the vocals, ironically. Vocalist Donny Doss is the master of ceremonies in this 45-minute journey through the flames of hell and back, and his piercing screams and growls anchor a strong band backing that shows a variety of influences right from the first track. “Plague of all Plagues” has the usual death metal fare of dropped-tuning riffs and never-ending double-bass and blast beats, but mixes it up with grinding breakdowns reminiscent of bands like Napalm Death.

“Kampstoff Lost (Agent H)” is much more traditional in echoing chugging and head-banging beats of bands such as Cannibal Corpse, and is followed by an atmospheric bass guitar interlude called “Weeping on the Shores of Lucrine Lake.” I actually thought this very effectively-placed in breaking up the repetition that many death metal bands experience on full albums where every song has the same tuning and structure. You won’t find that here.

Later on the album breaks into a chaotic time structure that is featured prominently on “Vampyre” and “Kill Like a God,” two of the album’s best tracks. The drumming is solid here, though not quite polished at times and proves much more efficient in the slower, grinding sections. I really dig the title track as well because it’s the best mood-setting piece on the album. It would have probably had better placement as the intro, but it serves as a good warm-up to the final rise out of the ashes in “Beast Nero.”

The Carrion Creed is an album that isn’t satisfied with simplicity or straight up in-your-face thrash. It’s wild, unleashed and experimental, and drives you deep into the flames before building up to one last explosive attack. Solid effort by this band and I am very excited to hear more.

Author: Dan Hoyt
Rating: 8.4/10
Label: Black Morning Star Records
Website: http://www.deadsyndicate.net

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 4:04 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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