Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 07/28/2009
Run Time: 0:00
Dino Cazares packed the debut CD by
Divine Heresy with guest stars -- members of
Static-X,
Dimmu Borgir,
Soulfly, and
Machine Head all showed up to the party. This time around, the band is a stripped-down unit with nobody else lending a hand, and
Bringer of Plagues is a better album for it. Of course, there are other changes, too; original vocalist
Tommy Cummings was fired after a very public fight in April 2008, and there's a new bassist,
Joe Payne, making his studio debut with the band. But new vocalist
Travis Neal is a real find, switching back and forth between ultra-harsh death growls and barks and a high, clean, almost crooning vocal style on the choruses. That may not sound all that unique, but after
Cummings' muscle-headed, bare-bones delivery, it's a welcome changeup. And guitarist
Cazares and drummer
Tim Yeung are still the band's real stars.
Cazares' riffs are much more brutal than the ones he wrote with industrial-metal stars
Fear Factory, while
Yeung's work is as lightning-fast and relentless as anything he played with more traditional death metal acts
Hate Eternal,
Decrepit Birth, and
Vital Remains. For the most part, this is a head-down, hair-pinwheeling death metal album, with melody mostly an afterthought (the chorus of
"Redefine" seems to belong to a whole different song, and the almost power metal intro section of
"Letter to Mother" is equally surprising in context). The production, by
Machine Head guitarist
Logan Mader, is ultra-heavy, and the performances are ferocious without seeming overly cleaned-up. If they can keep their lineup steady,
Divine Heresy might be onto something.
~Phil Freeman, All Music Guide
;)
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