Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Dark Millennium - Diana Read Peace

A band seemingly lost in the sands of time...only together a few short years and releasing 2 full lengths before disbanding in '93. Their first album Ashore the Celestial Burden is an INCREDIBLE melodic death metal album...leads are EVERYWHERE lush and gorgeous and beautiful. Not only that, but the riffs retain a technical thrash edge a la Dark Angel...it's almost like being in guitar heaven for an hour.
That said, I actually prefer their follow up album from '93, the intriguingly titled Diana Read Peace (I'm guessing named after Diana Roman goddess of the hunt, but who the hell knows!) This one is much more rock-oriented than it's predecessor...approaching a Jesus Lizard meets Angel Rat era Voivod sound draped in a cult death metal aesthetic. The sound is spacey and bold creating dynamix that are faaar outside of typical death metal. At times the album starts to morph into a weird darkened-folk jam which makes me want to call DRP the death metal version of Comus's First Utterance, as ridiculous as that sounds (but imagine such a thing, it would be great, wouldn't it!!!) Take the incredible Pandemonium...the building and layering of sounds in this song is unconstrained and reaches emotive heights that are incredibly moving.
DRP is an album that you kind of have to live with for a while...a grower not a shower if you know what I mean...but do give it a shot, because it's charms are sure to delite and titillate even the most stubborn of death metal fans.

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