Diluvian
Inhumanity Remains
5.6
France’s Diluvian is a deathcore band. That one statement probably sent half of you screaming away already, and that’s fine. Here’s another to weed some of you out: France’s Diluvian doesn’t do anything to deviate from the deathcore formula.
So we’re already down to about 30% of our potential readers, and that’s not a good thing, but it was necessary. Now it’s time to break out this one: France’s Diluvian is a good band. Yeah, it’s true. They’re a good band—not a great one, mind you, but a good one, albeit one that fits squarely within the boundaries of their style, without pushing any sides of the envelope. They’re tight; they’re polished; they’re as good as the upper echelons of their competition, the Whitechapels of the world. In short, they do nothing new, but they do it well enough to appease those who are already predisposed to enjoy what they do, but not necessarily well enough to convert the unconverted.
If there were any doubt that Diluvian is a deathcore band, album opener "Ignition" would put that to rest within mere seconds--its choppy chugga main riff and melodic death metal tendencies pretty much define the style. "You’re Wretched," the first actual song on hand, follows quickly with relentless blasting offset with some half-time double-kick-filled breakdowns, topping the whole thing off with flirtations with melody towards track’s-end. The title track is the best tune of the bunch, with its staccato breaks below some tasteful mid-range riffing. As you’d imagine, vocalist Trivette grunts and bellows and burps. His growling is formidable, but his inward belching grates on my nerves. The production is clean and punchy, and therein lies a small problem for me—I tend to like my death metal on the dirtier side of things, filled with grime and grit, low and grinding and evil. Sonically, Inhumanity Remains may actually be too big, too clear, too… good.
So I’ve managed to give some above-average scores to this album, and yet, at the same time, the review is skewed negatively, so briefly, I’ll reiterate: this band is good, but they aren’t original in any way, in any sense. Whether or not you appreciate that depends on whether or not you need or want another deathcore record.
I’ve reviewed two other Deepsend releases this year—the pounding death of Dawn Of Demise and the smashing death/grind of Porkfarm. (For the record, I still recommend both of those, although of the two, Porkfarm is the clear winner by leaps and bounds.) Diluvian has all the trappings of success these days, and I wish them luck. They've got solid production, solid musicianship, good songwriting, if perhaps unimaginatively so in each instance. Unfortunately, like so many of their peers, less-talented or not, they do have one flaw: they lack either genre-defining excellence or genre-defying innovation. In other words, I give ‘em a C+.
