Diocletian's behavior over the past year has been similar to their music. Besides a split with Weregoat and a cataclysmically short EP back in 2012, the band have been silent since 2010's last full length War of All Against All. This year, however, they exploded back into existence, playing MDF and releasing their newest full length Gesundrian in the scope of just a few months. Just as abruptly, the band cancelled their US tour dates due to a family emergency.
To summarize, the band appeared without warning, exploded fitfully, and then (unfortunately) departed. A common theme to war metal, the bestial bastard son of black metal, death metal and grindcore spawned in the early 90s by acts like Blasphemy and Archgoat, and Diocletian's newest is no exception. Gesundrian is a militant, horrifying 8-song conquest that refines the New Zealand act's commendably pointed take on the genre without showing any mercy.
Diocletian have always had a slightly more epic and intricate take on bestial black/death than their comrades in bands like Revenge, who spew their tangled, torrid bass lines and gurgled vocals like a cloud of mustard gas while machine-gun like blast beats add to the carnage. From the lone rider on the cover of Gesundrian, horse bucking defiantly, to the medieval ambiance of opener 'Cleaved Asunder', to the album's name, Old English for 'sundered', Diocletian's newest outing evokes a sense of Dark Age triumph. Almost the sort of feeling you'd get from a power metal album but, in Diocletian fashion, it's murky and violent - there's no 'battle glory' to be found in the corridors of this album, just the harsh reality of violence and destruction.
One of the biggest problems artists in Diocletian's genre face is keeping a listener entrenched within the music. War metal straddles the divide between grindcore and black metal, often incorporating the instrumentation of the former with the propensity for longer songs of the other, and the result is songs sometimes overstaying their welcome, or coming off as just a raging mass of noise, which, in the spirit of metal, is interesting for just a few minutes. Diocletian's solution since their inception has been to infuse their music with a sense of order and direction. War is chaos, but Diocletian, as if in the form of puppeteers, skillfully manipulate the chaos into a directional affair.
Gesundrian's skillful songwriting, however, isn't just a function of Diocletian holding the audience's interest. Rather, the record features a plethora of new ideas, from the monolithic, static-y doom center of 'Cleaved Asunder' and intro of 'Steel Jaws' to the guitar-drum tradeoff in follower 'Wretched Sons' - which has both instruments consistently moving to and from the forefront. 'Traitor's Gallow' features death and black metal riffs overlaid in a brutal harmony. Vocalist Logan Muir lays the vocals on in a raspy medium between black metal shriek and death metal roar, and he uses them sparingly, allowing the choking atmosphere to totally engulf the listener - not a new choice, but Gesundrian features sparser vocals than usual.
What these artistic choices add up to is Diocletian's most varied and cohesive, kinetic release yet. Songs move flawlessly between fast and slow portions, although, understandably emphasis is placed on the former. While Diocletian's solution isn't perfect, it's worked for them since 2009's Doom Cult, and given them an edge in the war metal game. Gesundrian is a foray into the thick of battle, and not one any fan of death metal should deprive themselves of.
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