Review: Doodseskader – Year Two

Genres: nu metal, experimental sludge metal, metalcore, post-metal, grunge rock (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Offering, We Butter the Bread with Butter, Bloodywood
Country: Belgium
Release date: 8 March 2024

By my reckoning, music has two distinct, though often overlapping, teloi (pretentious way to say purposes): utilitarian entertainment and capacity to allow for more potent emotion. For centuries people have quibbled about highbrow and lowbrow culture, juxtaposing these two styles as if simpler “folk” musics were lesser than, but music exemplifies so much more than that distinction now. One genre, though, truly marries utilitarian pleasure with deep emotional resonance: nu metal. What emotion, you may ask? Cringe.

To master the art of cringe in music is to walk across a tightrope the width of a lepton while the tempestuous winds that rip off roofs from houses in the United States Midwest pummel omnidirectionally. With its tough guy aesthetic, fanbase of cigarette-reeking, divorced, wife-beater wearing ex-wife beaters, and perplexing inclusion of hip-hop in the stereotypically white asf genre metal, nu metal’s stratospheric rise to popularity in the 90s is one of the greatest mysteries in our species’ several-hundred-thousand-year history. Enter Belgium’s Doodseskader who want to reshape the genre to sound more dangerous, replacing the faux-edgy hard rock of the classic bands with a vile sludge metal underpinning along with attempts at mammoth post-metal buildups.

This formula on Year Two largely works with the band utilizing a straightforward formula of grunge-y, slow buildup and then turning everything to hell in massive, crushing sludge sections with manic hardcore vocals and ominous electronica swirling behind. The back and forth between these two wildly different moods emphasizes both parts in a textbook example of juxtaposition in high school English; however, only the heavy sections work consistently. When the band swells into its manic sludge metal, acerbic in a way that feels similar to the new meth. album, it hits you like a locomotive, especially in the heavier breakdowns in the tracks “Pastel Prison,” “Bone Pipe,” and “Future Perfect (A Promise).” 

The clean parts, though, fall woefully short of the mark. First, the attempts at post-metal builds take forever, and their payoff would have been just as strong had they been cut in half, making large swaths of the album a chore to listen to. More importantly, though, is that Doodseskader heaps on the cringe every chance they have. Perhaps the worst offender, “Innocence (An Offering),” transitions between lackadaisical singing and tough guy spoken word to deliver the goods (the goods being the cringe). Lyricism are not these Belgians strength either: “Fuck a pity party, might be chasing my tail / But fortune never smiles, just saw her pitch black veil” (“Innocence (An Offering)”) or “I wish death upon these liars, / Professional bullshitters and internet messiahs / Fuck your lollipop dreams / And your fetishised violence” (“Bone Pipe”) or “You can hear a pin drop in my heart” (“Secrets Make Lonely”). 

On the vast scale of things that make Andy cringe, this certainly registers, but they actually pull it off in a surprisingly fun way, making me headbang while I pretend like I’m not enjoying nu metal. The biggest problem in this release actually isn’t how cheesy and over-the-top the edgy lyrics are but how slow the band is at reaching payoff—also a lack of pace changes across the album, nearly every song is at the same plodding pace and would work much better at 150% speed. Even at a prim thirty-eight minutes, Year Two feels twice as long, but with a bit more activity they could actually pull off the cringe. Focusing on the heavier aspects of their sound will drastically improve Year Three because the vocals are simply much better when shrieked out than when lazily spoken and because the riffs are actually pretty fire when they’re present. It’s a rare day when I’m begging for more sludge, but then again, Dodseskader are an unusual band.

Recommended tracks: Pastel Prison, Bone Pipe, People Have Poisoned My Mind to a Point Where I Can No Longer Function
You may also like: The Lion’s Daughter, meth. 
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Isolation Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Doodseskader is:
– Tim de Gieter (vocals, bass)
– Sigfried Burroughs (drums, vocals)