The Suffering

Dawn of Demise have been plugging away at their brutalized style of death/thrash for a little while now. Hate Takes its Form got a few positive mentions around the time it came out, but it failed to do much to stand out from the hordes of deathcore and brutal death bands at the time. Sure, they had a bit of a thrashier edge than most, but they were still very comparable to something like Kill Division and the chunky, percussive riffing style they use often is one of the more common in most modern death metal these days, especially that of the brutal variety. They were never quite idiosyncratic enough to inspire intense praise or hatred either way, but they had a solid foundation and had been slowly sculpting and fine-tuning their style over the years, culminating in 2012's Rejoice in Vengeance which was an enjoyable no-bullshit slab of ripping death metal and thick chugs. Unique Leader is known for having a distinct style of brutal death, and Dawn of Demise certainly don't look out of place on the label, but they definitely have a less technical and more straightforward approach to the style. Sure, they has minimized the thrash influence and amped up the modern brutality by the time Rejoice in Vengeance rolled around, but they lack the speed of Beheaded and there are no disjointed, convulsing song structures like you would find on a Deeds of Flesh or Suffocation album.

If you're familiar with Dawn of Demise already, that paragraph above was likely just re-stating the obvious, but there is a slight change in the formula on The Suffering. Bastian Thusgaard (known for being a student of Dirk Verbeuren, former drummer of Soilwork/Scarve and current Megadeth drummer) has joined the band's ranks for this album, and with him does come a slight change in style. While this album keeps in line with Dawn of Demise's past work, Thusgaard does bring with him a slightly more active, industrialized flair that wasn't present before. While his performance is the most noteworthy of any on the album, Thusgaard doesn't really bring anything new to the band besides that extra dash of professionalism. While he's good at throwing odd-timed fills in and keeping the album cohesive, it could also be argued his performance makes the band as a whole sound a little bit more sterile.

It's unfortunate, because Dawn of Demise really seemed to have a lot of momentum going in their direction, but with every step forward they take in production value or musicianship my overall enjoyment of their albums takes a step back. It's not that the band isn't good at what they do, it's just that they occupy a middle ground of death metal. As a whole, death metal concerns itself with extremes: usually it's really fast, really heavy, really chaotic, something it just elevated to that extra level of intensity that qualifies it as EXTREME metal. Dawn of Demise are occasionally fast, decently heavy, and not particularly chaotic. That shouldn't be a bad thing automatically, but nothing grabs you by the neck and resonates with you enough that you'd want to listen to it multiple times. I do really enjoy the gurgling, prickly tone of the vocalist, but he plays it safe most of the time with his lines and doesn't do anything outlandish. It feels incredibly weird to say that a brutal death metal album is "playing it safe", but if you're familiar with labels like Willowtip or Unique Leader, you know how much more can be done within this brutal death template in which Dawn of Demise resides.

Granted, if you're familiar with that style, you may be a little more partial to The Suffering than I am, because brutal death metal is generally something I only really explore the fringes of. I'm always interested when a band is particularly unusual or wacky for the genre, but I don't often bother much with middle-of-the-road genre stalwarts like this. The band has spent this much time slowly building a name for themselves, now what they really need is a bit of an artistic push to vault them out of that second or third tier on the periphery of death metal. The Suffering has its moments, and all the pieces are in place, but Dawn of Demise just aren't there yet in terms of creating a monster of an album that flattens your face and leaves you wanting more.

(Originally written for The Metal Observer)