Style: Progressive Death (Mixed vocals)
Review by: Chris
Country: US (MN)
Release date: February 22, 2021
Progressive death tends to be one of my favorite genres. It and its branches have given me some of my favorite and albums in music. Unfortunately sometimes there are efforts in the genre space that go nowhere. I’d say Deluziver as so far as this debut album shows seems to be in that category. Chaos Walker is somewhat of an apt name for this album, as there really is a lot going on in this album. You’ve got some classic style death metal riffs, shades of progressive contemporaries, and stranger elements thrown in track like “Lucadistic” and “Devil’s Waltz” what with their clean waltzy moments.
The album begins by just dropping straight into it on “Multiverse”, which immediately shows some of the issues that plagues this album. The vocals tonally would work or pass, but are mixed incredibly dry and upfront and thus completely ruin the vibe. The guitar tones are fine and the performances pretty good, but are a bit muddy overall and don’t really have that cut. The drums are doing what they should but are a bit sloppy and off at times. The band as a whole doesn’t seem to fully reach that lock-in point you would want, and in this genre that’s a bit of a death knell.
On the songs later where clean vocals come in, it really becomes an issue. Three minutes into “The Orwellian Society” is probably the best example of this, as the vocals are again mixed so incredibly high as to the point of being destructive, as well as being so dry and unprocessed that they translate terribly on tape. That is aside from the performance itself being lackluster at best. For lack of a better way to say it, I couldn’t in good faith recommend tracks that contained longer sections of clean vocals on this album.
I really don’t like just bashing or bad talking albums, and tend to try to give real “both sides” critiques when possible (in case bands themselves see this). So what does this album do well? For one, there definitely is an understanding of the genre from the members. That much is clear from a lot of the intent behind areas of this album. There are many sections and moments that I get what the idea was, and how other bands in the sphere have done them to success. I think Deluziver mainly find themselves failing more on the application and implementation phase of writing than the planning and ideas phase. There are truly some neat riffs and moments on this record, it just feels like you need to slog through too much questionable and frankly hard to get through parts as well to get to it.
The album probably needed more polish and better production overall, which is why I think I could see some promise here if there was a voice telling them where to trim the fat…and maybe no to some of the vocal decisions. I want to like a lot of it, it just doesn’t quite get past the line.
Recommended tracks: Void Eater, Deep End, Multiverse
Recommended for fans of:
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Label: Independent
Deluziver is:
– Andrew Meyerding (Vocals, Drums)
– Dominykas Golubevas (Vocals, Guitars, Keys)
– Alex Seefert (Vocals, Guitar, Bass)
– Grady Westling (Vocals, Guitar, Bass)
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