Favorite New Bands of 200's Pt. 5: The Black Dahlia Murder

It took quite awhile before I was willing to check out this band. I had heard of them, quite some time ago in fact. It was while I was still working at Target in the Assets Protection department. Target carried their Miasma album. Due to the band's name and the ambiguous cover shot, I had no idea what kind of music the band played, if it was even metal. Even after hearing the band was a metalcore band, it still took awhile to bite. I was pretty much over metalcore except for a few bands and did not feel it necessary to check out another one unless there was something special about them.

That's the thing though: The Black Dahlia Murder is NOT a metalcore band. Somehow they get lumped in with the scene because they came out about the same time, toured with a lot of metalcore bands, and had kind of a metalcore image. But again, The Black Dahlia Murder's music is NOT metalcore. Instead, the band plays a style very similar to Slaughter of the Soul by At the Gates.

I own the most recent two TBDM albums. I still have not brought myself to purchasing their earlier album.

Nocturnal was the first album that I picked up by the band. The reason this one caught my eye was due to the fantastic cover art which calls to mind classic albums by Emperor, Dark Funeral, and Lord Belial. I was blown away by the band's sound. It was great to hear a band so devoted to the true melodic death metal sound. The band even has some black metal influences, sounding like a fun mix of At the Gates and Dissection. The songs are exceptionally fast, with Travor Strnads blend of blackened shrieks and death-metal growling paving the way. This album sold me on the band.

Deflorate was a little disappointing only because it's pretty much exactly the same album as Nocturnal. I still enjoyed it quite a bit, but it just did not have the same feel as their prior album. No matter, this is still a great band.