By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: Full Length
Date
Released:
23/02/2018
Label: Silent
Pendulum Records
“Witnessed live and through my
speakers, “Designed to Disappear” is a juggernaut of a record – one that hops
easily between genres while remaining the work of a distinct, remarkable
quartet. I’m onboard for whatever
challenging, inspiring output they have in store.”
“Designed to Disappear” CD//CS//DD//LP track listing
1.
Spectacular Ruin
2.
The Form
3.
Slay Rider
4.
Reverse Speak
5. A Summertime
Song
6.
Ones and Zeros
7.
Ergot (feat. John Carbone)
8.
Designed to Disappear
The Review:
The
term “progressive” gets thrown around pretty egregiously in metal – most often
you’re left thinking of bands like Dream Theater or Iced Earth, and even then
thinking in terms of scale, length, or concept albums. Far too frequently, it’s easy to forget how
the genuine first wave of “prog” artists, from King Crimson and Santana
to Yes
and Rush,
embraced weirdly abstruse musical styles.
While a ton of modern prog enthusiasts will point to the longform arena
rock epics like “2112”, there
aren’t many who hold up the 80s pop experimentation of Yes as key progressive
cornerstones. Yet with the supremacy of
total oddball artists like Mike Patton and his onetime collaborators in
the dearly departed Dillinger Escape Plan in the 1990s and 2000s
metal/math/whatevercore scenes, there is growing appreciation for boundary-free
heavy music. New York state’s Dead Empires, formerly an
instrumental trio, have all the hallmarks of these monumentally talented
virtuosos with a healthy injection of pop sensibility to match.
Intro
track “Spectacular Ruin” displays
the muscular guitar- focused energy at the heart of Dead Empires winning formula,
allowing John Bryan space to lay down harmonized, rousing leads that will
please the Thin
Lizzy fanatics out there. “The Form” unleashes vocalist Jason
“PRKR” Sherman for the first time – his monstrously distorted vocals and noisy
manipulations are all the more exciting when his melodic strengths come to the
foreground later. The rhythm dynamic of
Phil Bartsch and DJ Scully is monumental – heavy as the heart of a neutron
star. And Bryan’s apt countering of chugging rhythm and
shrieking high end melodic guitar work sounds like the best Mars Volta
leads we never got.
“Slay Rider”, a thrashy two
minute blast of galloping drums and blast beat choruses, is a great example of
the Dead
Empires’ bold disregard for genre conventions – they could have
forged on with the noisy, experimental math rock of the first two tracks and
had a pretty solid record, instead, they go full on groove-thrash attack before
the heady, jazz grind freakout of “Reverse
Speak.” And that’s only the first
two minutes of the track, before a beautifully salsa infused guitar and piano
(guest Jason Volpe) tradeoff, pounding double bass drumming of Bartsch, or the
magnificently melodic bridge vocals.
Just when you think you have Dead Empires’ formula pegged they drop into a
spaced out dub metal (is that even a thing?) track like “A Summertime Song”. Like a 311
song if they could just muster the grit to be HEAVY, “A Summertime Song” is
the unlikeliest, weirdest 7 minutes I’ve heard on an album this year that
actually works as a pop single. DJ
Scully’s gnarly bass gets some time to shine here and it’s easy to see why he’s
an in demand multi-genre bassist – dude has some serious tone and chops.
The
instrumental “Ones and Zeros” is a
bit of a palate cleanser after the consistent tonal changeups of the record so
far, recalling the meat and potatoes harmonies of “Spectacular Ruin”, with some moments that recall Big Country
(maybe the most overlooked non-metal guitar group of the 80s), and others that
once again have me thinking of Phil Lynott and company. “Ergot”
may be the most “conventional” post-metal/metalcore piece of the whole record,
if a punishing metal song in the midst of all this post-rock beauty, featuring
a spoken word coda courtesy of Moon Tooth’s John Carbone, can be called
conventional at all. The epic, titular
finale is a 12 minute, anthemic journey through regret and mortality that is cinematic,
rewarding, and ultimately uplifting, even with lyrics like “death, the great equalizer / everything will end one day / that’s the
hard truth we go to bed with everyday, / designed to disappear we all go away”. Somehow it’s far more inspiring than
you’d imagine, with moments of seriously dissonant brutality. More than any other track, I could see this
as full on arena rock – it deserves an audience of thousands to truly
appreciate its massive scale.
Though
there are only eight tracks on their newest record, Dead Empires’ offer lightning
fast jaunts through multiple genres, embodying the bold heart of progressive
music’s infinite potential. While their
forebears like Dillinger
Escape Plan have retired, or Mike Patton has stopped only occasionally to
focus on projects that exist as more than one-off experiments, Dead Empires
has the potential to continue as a band to watch, as every move seems to take
you to new, unforeseen destinations.
It’s really amazing to see it replicated live, as I had to pleasure to
experience this autumn, and hear so MUCH coming from a stripped down
quartet. If you have a chance to see
them during the upcoming tour, I’d absolutely recommend it, as the pure
intensity and prowess is somehow just as monumental, even in a small
venue. Witnessed live and through my
speakers, “Designed to Disappear” is
a juggernaut of a record – one that hops easily between genres while remaining
the work of a distinct, remarkable quartet.
I’m onboard for whatever challenging, inspiring output they have in
store.
“Designed to Disappear” is available here
