Dead To Fall - ThePhoenix Throne

Wed 5th Apr, 2006 in Music Reviews

Whatever happened to good old fashioned heavy metal?  At the risk of sounding like a nostalgic geriatric harking back to the good ole days it seems that nothing new or innovative has come out of metal in quite a while. Ever since the ground breaking distorted amplification of Led Zeppelin wowed crowds and the evolution of thrash and Scandinavian black metal, and its subsequent bastardisation into goth and symphonic metal, it seemed that the metal soundscape was to be subjected to rehashed offerings from derivative bands….or so I mistakenly thought.

Metalcore, which lies somewhere in between hardcore and archetypal heavy metal, has evolved into one of the most overplayed and stalest of subgenres.  It seems that any genre that has ‘core’ as a suffix has become a parody of itself, possibly due to an increase in popularity within the public domain.  It’s an unfortunate truth that whatever is touched by the wider public invariably changes until it bears no resemblance to the musical community it once sprouted from.  Hardcore suffered such an unceremonious fate and it appeared that metalcore swiftly followed in its trajectory.

It would be of a calamitous outcome, akin to musical hara-kiri, to amalgamate both hardcore and metalcore but for Chicago metal heads Dead To Fall the by product is a rather sophisticated effort.  Possibly due to their current inclination towards Nordic black metal, and a little less emphasis on metalcore, their latest album The Phoenix Throne assails the listener with the most fervent guitar riffs and growling guttural vocals this side of Gothenburg.

The albums opens feverishly with the forceful Heroes (All My Heroes Have Failed Me) with it’s serious grinding guitars and pounding drums and a death metal vocal that sounds a little more refined than usual.  The rather droll Chum Fiesta reunites old school riffs with the roaring chorus of ‘chum, chum chum, chum fiesta’ which morbidly details a shark attack.  It might possibly be one of the most inane attempts at song writing but thankfully it sounds great. 

The somewhat protracted Guillotine Dream is a well crafted melodic epic that perfectly showcases the more symphonic direction the band have taken with this album.  Doomed To Failure is pure black metal with melodic leanings.  Corpse Collector is all pulverising riffs and pounding drums, which with the whispered susurrations makes a commanding tune.  Death and Rebirth is perhaps true symphonic black metal/melodic mayhem replete with full orchestra and choir.

The Phoenix Throne is a rather ambitious effort but it’s only weakness lies in the fact that after repeatedly listening to it in its entirety, with the notable exceptions of Corpse Collector, Heroes (All My Heroes Have Failed Me) and Death and Rebirth the rest of the songs sound too interchangeable and impossible to tell apart.  They sound great but at the same time they sound like something any fledgling band than knows how to growl and shred can reproduce.  It seems that the band members are still finding their musical feet with this album but at least they’ve dispensed with the metalcore security blanket and pursued a more sophisticated sound.  I’ll take that over those overproduced ‘cores’ any old day.