Dissonant
Suffocating in a Dead Scene
4
I don't get it. Don't people listen to their own albums? Isn't that some sort of unwritten rule? That you listen to your songs before releasing them? Dissonant, a band from Grand Rapids, Michigan, apparently don't believe in any sort of consistency in terms of song structure or musical quality. I can't imagine anything more frustrating than listening to a band who has the potential to create something great but instead choose to make something that makes me shake my head in embarrassment.
Irritatingly enough, the introduction to Dissonant was pretty positive. With an obvious hardcore influence combined with a little melody and creativity, the first song is actually great for what it is. The next track, "Loathing" comes off sounding like a bare-bones version of older Meatjack, something that's always welcome with me. However, the effective songwriting doesn't last, as by the third track, it's struggling to merge Megadeth with Lamb of God with clean choruses. At least, I think they're choruses.
But it gets worse. As if breaking into an acoustic Opeth part from a typical hardcore chug wasn't enough, Dissonant choose to hit a few sour notes and include some really fucking poor rock leads. Later, in the same fucking song, "Trend of the End", someone's girlfriend croons over an unoriginal rhythm guitar with no regard for...well, music in general. The title track starts out as a solid, but still typical, metalcore song and quickly deteriorates into monotonous garbage with more clean-sung vocals mindlessly thrown in and more fucking breakdowns.
I'll give them some credit as far as the production goes, as they did record and master the whole thing themselves. There isn't really anything to complain about with the production specifically, but like the music, there's no fucking consistency. Some parts sound great, others sound like shit. But hey, that's better than everything sounding like shit, I suppose.
It's hard to nail down, but I think the main problem with Suffocating in a Dead Scene is the extreme variety of influences combined with remarkably poor songwriting. Priding themselves on playing anything ranging from Norwegian Black Metal, to Southern Rock, the album demonstrates the precise reason that combining two great things does not always equal something better. I like chicken. I like chocolate. But chocolate chicken? No, it just doesn't fucking work.
Overall, I'm really unimpressed. More annoyed than anything, as if you were to just cycle through a few of the tracks without giving them an in-depth listen, you might actually pick up the CD. I assure you though, listening to this thing in its entirety is a task in itself. Despite all the negative things I have to say about Dissonant, at least they can write a few good riffs here and there. If they were to really sit down and focus on one particular style instead of being overambitious and trying to write an earth-shattering album their first time out, they really could go places. Until then, stay away.
