DEAD TO FALL - The Phoenix Throne
When Dead To Fall surfaced with their debut album four years ago, they were one of the most hopeful metal core bands. Unfortunately last year's Villainy & Virtue didn't offer many highlights except for a gorgeous cover painting. Dead To Fall were quick to come with their third album, they kept the same artist for their artwork, and although the cover isn't as impressive as last time, Dead To Fall fortunately made giant progress with their music.
Gone are the times of faltering visions. On The Phoenix Throne, Dead To Fall sound as confident as never before. Already the opener All My Heroes Have Failed Me combines European style death metal with American style late-Eighties thrash metal in an absolutely convincing way, with especially the two guitar players not ashamed to treat us from time to time with dual guitar leads. The vocals are very angry, hateful and fit the general mood of the songs. But don't worry, a band that adds Al Bundy and Lindsey Lohan into their credits can't be that mean after all.
Dead To Fall put a lot of emphasis on longer tracks this time, giving them ample time to build tension. Only the short Chum Fiesta sounds like a Biohazard song, with dated jump parts that I dismiss as a parody to early crossover metal music. Apart from that exception, the songs strongly adhere to a powerful template where especially the razor sharp guitar lines are total killers. The album ends with the monumental Death & Rebirth, a very atypical song for Dead To Fall, but not bad at all and a possible hint at their future sound.
Although Dead To Fall's metal core has quite a few death metal ingredients, they never sound as generic as most other, now popular nu metal bands. They are also maybe not as accessible as Black Dahlia Murder or Caliban, but therefore they seem to have found a niche of their own and recovered from their previous rather weak album.