Dead By Dawn - Living Legacy

\r\nGreeks Dead By Dawn hit my ears for the very first time with this album. They’ve been active since 2002 and have released only one EP since then. So, the time has come for their first official full length after all these years. I have to admit, the logo, band name and cover misleaded me into believing this is an old school death metal release but the content quickly put me to my place.
\r\n
\r\n The band states to be playing technical death metal, among others, but I found nothing complex in their structures nore their music. On the contrary, what I heard was melodic heavy/death metal that brought the early days of the greek underground to mind(besides, the band comes from the ashes of Necrotomy) with the Rotting Christ influences(Triarchy era) screaming out loud. The riffs are mostly heavymetal-ish, lacking the aggression and the sickness that death metal stand for(see Immolation, Mordin Angel, etc). I had to wait till "The predator"(10th track out of 11) to listen to something really aggressive but this one too, only lasted for a while. Some nerveless guitar leads don’t quite help, the outcome is simply out of the "death is all around" feeling. What bothered me the most is the monotonous, biased vocals that reminded a lot of Sakis(R.C.) that loose in strength and texture.
\r\n
\r\n The songwriting is not groundbreaking, not that this was the purpose afterall but, for example, when the drum programming hits the most experienced ear you cannot feel good about it. Where I’ll pay my respects is tha bassist’s work, which is rather beautiful, dressing the songs with excellent bass lines that don’t just follow the drums or the riffs. Hell, I really don’t want to sound so frustrating, I really don’t. Death metal is very demanding though, and as a musical act you should put out its main features. That is no other than pure aggression and choking brutality. After many listening sessions all I got left is some good parts of "Perverse And Leather" and the above mentioned "The Predator". From there on I truly believe that "Living Legacy" supported by a demo level production will go unnoticed in time. The "competition" is hard and big in numbers and if you want to stand out you’ll have to try a bit harder than this. I really hope their next step is an improvement!\r\n

\r\n

\r\n \r\n

\r\n

\r\nGiannis rem3dy Nakos \r\n

\r\n