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Track Listing: Rated: Total Play Time:  |
Eerie, Pennsylvania’s Village of Dead Roads is probably one of the
more interesting metal bands I’ve heard in a while. First of all, the
band name dropping in the press release was a little overkill. I mean,
how many bands will you be compared to before it means that you don’t
sound like any of them? Influences aside, this whole “Sabbath meets
Godflesh” comparison doesn’t hold any water with me at all. We all know
that Sabbath are the godfathers of doom, but if I had a nickel for every
time a band who wrote some slow, heavy songs was compared to Sabbath,
I’d have some serious bus change. Godflesh? Where? Oh you mean those
annoying, buzzing interludes between the songs trying to pass
themselves off as industrial noise? And the Electric Wizard comparison is just
silly. Anyway, that nonsense aside, Village of Dead Roads’ second official
release, “Dwelling in Doubt,” is a heavy, thick-riffed album that might
pass for doom on amateur night all the while starting a new genre of
“metalcore doom” on any other night. The songs are mostly catchy and
well written; the sign of a band that are confident in their skill and how
they want to approach their sound. The riffing is heavy and powerful,
but even with all of that, the songs are too short for what they’re
trying to accomplish. They just don’t leave much lasting impression,
there’s no crescendo or ascending moment where I can tell that something
monumental is coming up. The songs are just kind of… there. It also
doesn’t help to have a song with a bunch of movie outtakes and the
multiple “instrumental” intermission tracks completely destroy any kind of
continuity that might have been built between songs had they been given
the chance. My biggest complaint is the vocals. They’re just terrible. No way
to put it nicely. Bad. They’re the typical throaty yell heard in just
about every metalcore band in existence. I honestly could go the rest
of my life without ever hearing vocals like these ever again. And just
for added repulsion, some clean, whiny vocals are thrown in here and
there that teeter on the edge of emo. Overall, I don’t hate this album so much as it was just painfully
underwhelming. I think Village of Dead Roads have some good ideas and
are competent musicians, but still have a ways to go before they make
that proverbial “impact” amongst their peers. |
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