Drag the Dead [USA]
Drag the Dead
2012
Full Length
Independent
Brutal Death Metal/Grindcore
It doesn’t take long for one to notice the themes of gore and perversion on Drag the Dead‘s debut self-titled full length album, and anyone with even the slightest knowledge of extreme metal would soon know what is headed their way with Drag the Dead. The band claims their music to be “the act of being bludgeoned to death by a 10 ton wooden hammer dulled by centuries of slamming into rotted earth”, so naturally one would expect some relentless bone-crushing brutal death metal on this record.
The intro Prelusive Uterine Decimation sets the haunting mood for the listener, putting the listener into a world torn apart by the apocalypse, having nowhere to run. The band soon hits the listener relentlessly with Blindsided Menstrual Holocaust, and the description that the band has provided to their music could not be more apt. The music is extremely low and crushing, with not only the downtuned riffs that torture the listener’s ears mercilessly, but also with the high mix of the bass drums, ensuring that everything is left in a mush after exposure to Drag the Dead‘s art. The urgency that is on tracks such as The Final Desecration hastens the process of destruction, and also provides an avenue for the band to display their tightness and technical prowess, at the same time providing listener with some of the most headbangable material on the album. Bassist Kyle, for example, punishes his instrument on tracks like these, adding a slight tech-death tough to the band’s brand of brutal death metal.
Throughout the album, the band includes sound samples to help to bring about the feeling of hopelessness and to display their hedonistic indulgence in perversion. While initially the inclusion of such samples between tracks are rather interesting and help to enhance the experience, as the album progressed, these spoken samples began to take the toll on the listener, breaking the momentum and causing what inertia the band managed to gain from the previous tracks. This got somewhat irritating by the time the album passes the halfway mark, causing the intentions of the band to backfire. Samples that would have otherwise caused a chuckle such as Serial Deity to the Aborted end up being frustrations and pointless ranting, and one is often tempted to just press the fast forward button everytime the interludes begin.
In all honesty though, the music on Drag the Dead is extremely good and well-crafted, and certainly lives up to the hype that the band has created for themselves. Unfortunately the over-abundance of spoken samples just spoil the entire experience. For maximum enjoyment then, remove all the spoken tracks and just enjoy the music.
Drag the Dead on the internet:
Official website
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YouTube
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