Daath - Futility

2005-07-13

Sometimes I dig really deep in my promo stack and find buried treasures, Daath is certainly one of them.

The album's cover is a miss-shot, it tends to suggest an alternative gothic album, with a big fat female vocalist that dyes her hair black and puts on a lot of black mascara, the content of the album couldn’t be more different.

If pushed to the wall and demanded to label the band's style and similarities, I would pinpoint the first Static X album as somewhat similar, meaning, industrial-techno death metal, yep, it’s a wide definition, but I think it fits.

Using some heavy distorted guitars, mostly growled vocals (doing a mean cookie monster impersonation at times), and great rhythms, the band managers to stay interesting and aggressive through out the album.

Second and third tracks are among my favorites, both contain great guitar riffs and great rhythms, but its on tracks such as Concentrate Living that they're ingenuity truly shines, with a real Mr. Bungle vibe and great vocal passages.

A strange choice, from my point of view, was keeping three quite similar tracks as the last tracks in the album, all have a more laid back, Mike Patton-like feel to them, I would have spread them evenly between the more aggressive tracks that constitute the main bulk of the album.

Sound-wise, its certainly professional sounding, with clear instruments and thick guitars, there's some meat to be added to it, but judging from sound samples taken from their forthcoming album, they seem to have thickened the sound nicely.

With a guest appearance on the new album by the likes of Talley from Chimaira, and a mix by James Murphy, I hope this band gets their well-earned reward, and be signed by such a label as Roadrunner, which will recognize their evident talent and originality.

Alon Miasnikov