Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Initial Impressions: Despised Icon: Day of Mourning

Well I recently made a big purchase on Century Media and they sent a free grab bag of 10 CDs. More on that later. Despised Icon was one of those free CDs and I can honestly say that I was not very excited about it. I am not a big deathcore fan, only choosing to listen to two such bands: Through the Eyes of the Dead and Carnifex. Despised Icon is one of the originators of the style blending grind, death metal, and hardcore together. So, no I was not thrilled. I had heard one song from the band previously and it did not impress me.

So what's the album like?

Well it starts out with a breakdown. That's hard to do. In fact, the entire first track is a breakdown, on top of a breakdown, on top of a breakdown. Needless to say, not the best way to start out an album.

The second track is a little better. But, there's still breakdowns galore. The problem with this musical cliche is not that the breakdown is inherently bad. In fact, it can sound pretty damn good. Just look at Sodom's "Tired and Red". However, deathcore bands write the song around the breakdown. Thus we have an album that never seems to go anywhere.

The track "MVP" is awful. Plain and simple. This is the first song I had heard by the band and it gave me a bad impression of them then.

Every once in awhile, the band hits onto a decent groove and keeps that going...until they lead into another breakdown. This is a stereotypical deathcore band in every way, shape, and form. I'm just not sure what there is to be excited about with this genre. Carnifex and TTEOTD are okay because they play melodeath-style riffing around the breakdowns, but this band just lets it sit there. This is just terrible.

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