Dark Future

Once you get to know me a little bit, you'll probably realize something about my tastes: I love blastbeats. Black metal probably wouldn't be my favorite genre of music were it not for the sheer speed and power bands like Marduk and Setherial can evoke. What can I say, I wanna go fast. I understand that most people probably don't have the stamina nor the complete lack of taste to do 40 minutes of non-stop blastbeats, though, which is why Satan invented the double-kick pedal. That way, even when a song needs to slow down and breathe a little bit, the kick drum can still maintain the SPEED. There's usually one thing I end up wanting to change about most extreme metal albums, and that's the need to inject either more blastbeats, more double-kick sections, or both.

I guess that's why bands like Destroying Divinity are necessary--much to my dismay, they give me a healthy dose of reality. Dark Future is an album comprised almost entirely of either blastbeats or double-kick beats on the drums, but alas, it is not quite the masterpiece I imagined an album with such drumming would be. As you can imagine, when you're just going full blast, nonstop, all the time, you tend to lose any sense of dynamics. You really do need those slow parts to make the fast stuff seem faster, otherwise it just ends up sounding like a cacophonous mess, and that's exactly what happens on Dark Future. It's a shame, too, because though somewhat aversive and unmemorable, the riffs are actually sort of interesting, mostly consisting of chaotic OSDM-inspired riffs (think Immolation) with a slight touch of modern brutal death (aka pinch harmonics) and even some slightly higher-pitched riffs that bring black metal to mind occasionally. There's a lot going into these riffs, but they don't repeat themselves often and transition at unusual times. The guitar gets a little bit buried underneath the clattering of the drums when they're going fast, which is...well, pretty much all the time. A lot of the riffs are actually fairly distinct when taken out of context, but when you actually listen to Dark Future in full, everything just blurs together.

It's kind of a shame, because the complete lack of variety in the drumming kills the otherwise really solid vibe Destroying Divinity had going for them. There's actually a lot of bands that rely heavily of fast, blasting drums and they can still hold your interest for a full album, such as Vader, but the difference is that Destroying Divinity's drummer only really seems to know two kinds of beats. All of his blasbeats sound functionally identical in the music, same with the double-kick drumming. It's like the guy is a robot with two settings. There are (very) rare occasions where the music does kind of slow down for a bit, but those are the most boring moments on the record. They seem to serve only as brief breaks from the pummeling speed with little thought put into them. As tedious as the hyperfast cacophony is, it's the best they've got. Those slow moments do make me wonder if it's not entirely the drummer's fault. The guitars also generally lack the ability to create tension through riffs alone, mostly just content to twist and turn and then jump into another riff. Sometimes things slow down, sometimes they speed up, sometimes a solo appears, but none of it ever really makes sense. The lack of dynamics in the drumming appears only to be matched by the lack of dynamics in the riffs, solid as they are in isolation. This is one of those albums where if you were to listen to an individual song, it would sound incomplete on its own, but listening to Dark Future front to back gives you a fuller picture. Trouble is, that serves as a weakness of the album when it would usually be viewed as a strength.

The vocals are actually pretty cool--they're low, gurgly growls that lack power or force but make up for it with their tone and creepiness, and can be easily compared to Demilich. That's the thing, though: every element of this band sounds great when viewed in isolation. Constant blasting and double kick? riffs inspired by Immolation? a Demilich-esque vocalist? The PR description for this album would have me chomping at the bit to buy this album, but for some reason, when you listen to it all at the same time, the result seems fairly uninspired. Maybe it's the fault of a lack of chemistry or shared vision between the band members? I'm struggling to find the root cause. Whatever it is, Dark Future is one of those albums that is much less enjoyable than the sum of its parts.

Despite the fact Destroying Divinity are not completely new to the scene, delivering pure old school death metal soaked in dark atmosphere in vein of good old Morbid Angel / Incantation / Immolation for ten years now, they are still sort of obscure and little known troop of doom. And that's a shame, this band needs an apology from someone! If you're true death metal adorer missing the true gruesome spirit of 90's unholy acts of Death, this is the band you shall support!

As mentioned before, Destroying Divinity are contributing the diabolical conquest for many years and with 'Dark Future' they come with their most complex songwriting and the most professional sound so far. The complexity of blistering riffs, machine gun drumming and a lava spouting vocals covered in soul devouring sound is incredible. With this vortex of heavy, atonal, muddy riffs and deep vocal similar to the one of Ross Dolan they are most similar to the mighty Immolation but there’s a lot of links to the works of Morbid Angel and Incantation. However "rather than being complete plagiarism like many of the US based Incantation clones popping up", Destroying Divinity delivers an album with it's own character. The techniques used are pretty traditional but the band's sense for brutality and darkness make the atmosphere very fresh (and sick).

Hammering the hellish anvils, walls of guitar lines weaving like serpents, brutality, coldness and scent of sulphur in every tone of music and in every chant uttered. The atmosphere just drags you in. Fast blasting hellfire parts changing with slow and massive compositions, strong focus on songwriting, mighty grooves and diabolical melodies, sweeping solos.. The album has everything what it takes to be interesting, all in pretty intense true death metal way and with very dense production. Underground death metal at its best form, this is the way it shall be!

Highly recomended for fans of Fleshtized, Drawn & Quartered, Blaspherian, Immolation and all those who crave insanity, obscurity, darkness and horror.

The great spirit od Death lives!
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P.S. this is probably the best Czech spawn of Death. If you seek another Czech act reaching this level of blasphemous heaviness in vein of the Supreme ones, try Heaving Earth. If you like this, make sure you check them out too!

Novelty within the realm of death metal is something sadly confined to the past, as least in most cases. Once in awhile you've got a Portal arriving, or The Chasm will continue to refine themselves and the atmospheric potential of their medium, but for most artists who have arrived this century to swell out the genre's ranks, the playground has already been trampled many times over, the sand scattered outside the box and the toys worn and broken with overuse. Thus it becomes a matter of survival: do you honor your genre or do you disappoint it? Czechs Destroying Divinity answer with the former. Surely, there is nothing unique about their third full-length plunge Dark Future. Even the title is the opposite of oblique. However, the music itself is lovingly crafted enough that you can feel the stomach begin to drop out at the menacing walls of low-pitched guitars and the glistening guts of atmosphere created through the wicked fills.

I am at times reminded of Morbid Angel's slower material (Domination, Heretic or Gateways to Annihilation) in a slugfest with the strange taste of Finland's Demilich, the relentless true crop of Dutch death outfits like Sinister or Pestilence, and a smaller dose of an Immolation or Incantation in the way they conceive their brickhouse, sinister grooves. The weighted, melodic density that introduces "Birth of Faceless Killer" even ventures into some mid 90s Hypocrisy territory, but overall the Czech band does not sound so much like any one influence to become a slack-jawed example of icon worship or impersonation, and the record does maintain a fresh polish, thanks to the simmering, acidic melodies that burst and bleed over the brutal slamming delivery of the rhythm guitars and vocals, which are predictable in the guttural sense, but truly effective over this level of composition.

The band excels in the slower area, as in tracks "Undead in the Darkness" or "At War With Two Worlds". The latter stands out in particular due to the almost industrial strength mystique caused by the clinical glow of the melodies, the simplicity of the bluesy, evil lead in the early bridge, or the extended meathouse hooking of the breakdown. They hint at a rare crossroads of old school appeal, convulsive mosh pit entitlement, and a modern glaze of mortuary aesthetics. But Destroying Divinity do not limit themselves solely to the corpse-crawl of morbid intentions, picking up the pace with the hostile juggernaut "Prophecy" or the desperate writhing slaughterhouse found beneath the visceral awnings of "Name Written With Blood".

There's not a track among these nine that will lead you astray from the experience, and while you may find the resonance of atmosphere redundant in places, Dark Future delivers where many peers simply fail due to the lack of virile energy and vile intentions, rendering the fat of the band's earlier albums on Grodshain Productions into the slosh of weak oil. An unsettling darkness thrives at the core of this album, a roiling, otherworldly chaos which speaks of ill fates to come. It's not a riff for riff masterpiece, but 36 minutes of well executed tumult well fitted to a zombie infestation or ritual summoning of Elder gods.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com