When Life Shatters...
First of all I have to write I am die-hard disciple of
Desultory creativeness. But let me ask you one question. Have you ever swallowed
a bitterness? The most bitter bitterness in a whole universe? Unfortunately one
day I swallowed something bitter, but it wasn’t a medicine or denatonium
benzoate. The story begins in 1996 when I bought the newest Desultory album
“Swallow the Snake” on a tape (!). Maximum excitement, anyway no wonder, if I
divinize both first Desultory albums as the most important masterpieces in my death
metal world.
Yes, my excitement turned into extreme astonishment.
Firstly: where is the old band logo which I precisely drew many times during
some lessons in my secondary school? The next thing: the words on the
frontcover: “parental advisory explicit lyrics”. What is this? Then I didn’t
know that it was only a quiet beginning to the fatal disaster…
Some information about Stefan Pöge had left the band
came to my mind after releasing “Bitterness” album. Till today I know no reasons
why. But this was a kind of storm warning. Desultory recorded their third album
as a three-man band, Håkan took lead guitar also. I don’t know if it an important
thing that Klas and Thomas were bald. I wrote something about astonishment, but
tunes I heard really froze my blood. I asked myself: what the fuck is it? Fast
glance on the cover, no, I can see “Desultory”name absolutely clearly. But to
be honest, everything is different. Different logo, line-up, songs, sounding
and production. Also there is additional sound producer Fred Estby from
Dismember. And I have a question: did Desultory really need this guy? No, I
don’t think so. Look at the previous two albums. And forget it.
Let’s start to describe from the beginning. Here you can admire
pseudorock/hardcore sounding, or something that does not fit in with metal
music. The band lost his energy, I really don’t like solo leads due to this
strange production. Everything is very distorted, this is not the band I know!
Vocals: comparing to the two first albums… No, there is nothing on this cd I
could compare to. Vocals totally suck: Klas sings like he is in another room or
he is on the phone! Excellent screams and growls fell into oblivion. The compositions
are not better. Besides musical calamities like “Nothing Dies”, “In My Veins”
and “The Bitter Man” there are very mediocre three songs only. Namely opening
“Mushroom Smile” with energetic riffs and tempo but everything is destroyed by
vocals (some digital transducer on vocals or what???) and of course by terrible
sounding. Unfortunately this note concerns to the rest on “Swallow the Snake”.
The two last ones “Before Today, Beyond Tomorrow” and “Silent Suffering” have
some melodic leading riffs, but I won’t dare to confront for example with “A
Closing Eye” from the second album. The fundamental question “is it still
Desultory?” gathers in my troubled mind. But the answer suddenly appears: no,
it is not. NOT!!!! It’s not a brain teaser to draw a conclusion that loss of
Stefan was an inexpiable mistake. Desultory is not a death metal band, they
doesn’t play fast, for me it’s kind of funny pseudo hardrock/core with not so
heavy guitars. In the last song on the album “Silent Suffering”, Klas screams:
“can you feel the pain, can you feel the silent suffering”. Yes, I can feel it
during listening to “Swallow the Snake”.
The mark is obvious. The band should change the name. Maybe then the
mark could be higher? Yeah, could be… I know that my opinion is very ruthless,
but Desultory is one of the first death metal bands in my life. Very
interesting fact is that Swedes had split up after releasing this album and
change their name to Zebulon (sadly too late!!!). They reunited in 2009, the title
of the fourth album is known, but Stefan Pöge is still missing. What kind of
music Desultory will create? Time will show… I hope it won't be something like
swallowing the snake.
1/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on September, 2010, now modified a bit)
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