Dead For Days
Creating Murderous Domain
7
Recent history has seen many underground labels branching out beyond their original vision to bring us a myriad of artists: Roadrunner, Metal Blade, Century Media, Nuclear Blast, and Relapse now host bands of several different genres/sub-genres in their quest to be the top dog of the underground. It is refreshing, then, to see a label sticking to its guns when it would be easy (and more financially lucrative) to branch out and hop on the latest “it” sound. United Gutteral is one of these labels, consistently releasing slab after slab of brutal, no-frills death metal. Redundant at times, for sure, but every now and then, one of them jumps out and bites you on the nose and commands your full attention and headbanging fury. Dead For Days’s Creating Murderous Domain is one of those slabs.
Notwithstanding the standard sub-Cookie Monster vocals, this is quite the impressive display of brutal death metal. You’ve got your constant double-bass and your hyperspeed riffing, topped off with a production and overall sound that owes just as much to thrash metal as it does to death metal. You hardly even notice the slick groove laid down in “Swallowing the Barrel” until you realize that your headbanging speed has dropped to midtempo. In that regard, DFD may have some of the same crossover appeal to hardcore audiences as Skinless. And who among us wouldn’t love to see a band live and be able to scream out a request for “Face Down in a Pile of Dog Shit”? In the end, there is little diversity to this disc or really nothing that hasn’t been done before, but it’s enough to make the band stand out amongst a sea of bands that are content to belch over speed-for-speed’s-sake riffs.
What sets this disc apart ultimately is the production, which is surprisingly clean to the point where you can almost hear the bass lines independently of the guitars. I for one prefer that, over the standard muddiness of the genre. For thrashy death with Cannibal Corpse-type riffs, low grunts, and just a hint of groove, try yourself a heaping bowl of Dead For Days.
