Cover Art: Disarmonia Mundi is an Italian melodeth band which in my opinion is one of the best practitioners of the whole harsh/clean vocal thing and a pioneer in using synth to elevate their sound to new intensities and depth. I’ve been a big fan of Disarmonia Mundi for a long time now, I think I first discovered them back in 2004/05 with their second album Fragments of D-Generation which is still one of my favorites along with each subsequent new album. The band also has a lot of connections to many of my other favorite bands such as Soilwork, Blood Stain Child and Chthonic which often tour together and have a similar sound, probably because this band’s producer also produces the last two bands as well and for some reason I feel the guy knows Japanese or something since Disarmonia Mundi and Blood Stain Child are often collaborators anonymously on other metal related ventures in Japan. This cover art however, while cool, has me laughing a bit. What’s with the giant alien/bald monster head? It’s kind of jokes man. While this particular album art is definitely an improvement to previous illustrations they have put out, which in all honestly were kind of shitty looking this one just screams all sort of bait and oh man. Like I didn’t’ need to have some little man on the bottom right pointing at some shit. Ah well.
Album Review: As mentioned, Disarmonia Mundi is one of my favorite bands, yes, in short this album is rock solid, maybe a bit too rock solid. All of the riffs, song compositions, speed and vocals are really good but I get a strange sense of deja vu in some songs, like I had heard this before; which is understandable but some I feel are almost like re-arranged versions of their earlier songs. The most noticeable, and admittedly the one that had bothered me the most is the first song on the album, Creation Dirge which sounds awfully similar to Common State of Inner Violence, the first song on their 2004 album, except not as good. Another song that sounds similar to Common State of Inner Violence is Clay Of Hate, fuck two songs with similar riffs? The opening riff and entire song structure of both Creation Dirge/Clay Of Hate is just too similar to call it unintentional and as man that values the importance of the first song on an album I was more than a bit worried. Has the band lost it’s touch and is only just rehashing their previous material? Luckily, I don’t think so, the rest of the songs were excellent and very original, although I could tell a few riffs were re-used from previous album, which is fine. Which brings to question why they decided to make Creation Dirge the first song on the album or rather, why at all? Shit sounds WAY to similar to Common State of Inner Violence, why not open with some of their better songs on the album such as Coffin, Slaves To The Illusion Of Life or Stormghost? I dunno, maybe it’s just me that thinks this. They also include a cover track to Iron Maiden’s The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner which is actually pretty badass good. All in all, despite it’s similarities to older work is still a very good album. Shame really, had I not listened to any of Disarmonia Mundi’s previous albums this would have easily scored at least a 8, maybe even 9-10, but that’s not the case here unfortunately. Hopefully the band can put together more original material in their next album down the road.
Score: 7.5