Threads of Time

Damcyan is a local San Diegan band combining an assortment of metal subgenres into their music. Progressive, black, death/thrash, and with a symphonic feel lent to them by their keyboards, their sound is not something you hear every day, but not necessarily “groundbreaking.” Imagine Dimmu Borgir with a thrash edge and you’ve got a decent idea of what this band sounds like.

Damcyan gives a respectable performance. Guitars and drums are fairly average, though the former produces some good leads and riffs. Bass is audible, sometimes using an unusual scratchy attribute. I am a fan of the keyboards, which produce a variety of entertaining sounds and give the band a necessary flair, distinguishing them from some other comparable groups. It’s a great effect when the keyboard and guitar work in tandem, complementing each other, but this unfortunately doesn’t happen often; the keyboards take a backseat to the guitars. Vocals are mostly delivered in a harsh thrash manner, similar to the style used by bands like Atheist, Death, Coroner, etc. The music is generally played at a chaotic mid/fast-pace, with the occasional slow, soft, keyboard-dominated or acoustic part thrown in to break it up. The lyrics are typical metal stuff: death, violence, hatred, and so on. They tend to be indecipherable, but I have the almighty lyric booklet.

The songs on Threads of Time aren’t really interchangeable, though slightly too consistent. This could be considered a good thing, as there is little variation in quality, but that leaves no fat to be trimmed, which is bad when you look at the sheer length of this album – almost 75 minutes. That is my main complaint. It’s just too long. It could have even been split into two separate albums, and each might have achieved about an 80-85%, but they just couldn’t bear to cut anything out.

Threads of Time is a good effort, and while not necessarily musically flawed, there is too little variation and too low of general quality to get away with an hour+ album. Despite the overkill on length, Damcyan has an interesting sound, and one worth checking out. The band is online, on Spotify, and they aren’t stingy with promo CDs either…