Dauntless
Execute The Fact
6.3
Synopsis:
If you are looking for challenging, creative original death/thrash metal, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a tightly executed, intense but unoriginal exercise in death/thrash styled after Dew Scented, Hatespehere, Hurtlocker and earlier Carnal Forge, keep reading.
Review:
Though this is Dauntless’ debut album, the Helsinki act has been around for some nine years and impressed enough folks at the doom-based Firebox to give them a record deal. The thing is though, it’s pretty standard fare for the genre. There’s nothing really bad about the production, song writing or musicianship, but there’s nothing too awfully great either.
Everything is tight, razor sharp and delivered with a tangible intensity that the Europeans seem to breathe into every note, and there’s conviction dripping from every riff and roar, but it just lacks that “it” to take it to the next level. Production wise, chunky mid range collides with stout guitars giving the album a certain death metal feel, and it’s free from any commercial Americanizations such as clean vocals and acoustics, but even when raging for its duration, I just can’t get into the songs.
By the time the fifth track, “Blindfolded Solutions,” rumbles into view, I’m already in another place, thinking about another album or something else entirely different (why do ATM’s have English accents?). That’s not a knock on the band, but more the genre as I get bored with the general same, breakneck pace that death/thrash offers. Even, slower chunkier tracks like the start of “Body Open Wide”, just reek of about 30 others bands and songs.
That all being said, Dauntless are solid at what they do and if you found the new Carnal Forge a bit too tame and melodic, this might fit the bill.
