Dark Remains - Planet Earth Scourged
Burning Misery Records - BM001 - 2006
By Philip Whitehouse
Holland's Dark Remains are one of those bands that annoys me. I don't know them personally or anything, you understand - they just belong to a certain group of bands that really piss me off round about the time I find myself having to write an entertaining and informative review (in no less than 200 words) about them. Because I can pretty much sum the band up like this; Dark Remains play basic, old-school death metal with barely a trace of innovation or originality. And there you have it.
Claiming to take inspiration from Immolation (I don't really hear it, personally) and 'slow Cannibal Corpse' (although a lot of the material here is pretty uptempo), Dark Remains combine workmanlike drumming, throaty growling vocals, tremolo-picked generic speedy riffage and chuggy generic mid-tempo riffage to utterly unexciting effect. Seriously, I've listened to this album all the way through about five times now, and I still can't bring to mind a single one of the riffs. It all just blurs by. The production is adequate (the guitars in particular having a nice meaty crunch to them), and nothing on Planet Earth Scourged is offensively bad... And that's the problem.
There's really nothing to say about them at all. If you're an old-school simplistic death metal obssessive, then yeah, maybe you should pick this up just for the sake of having every album in the pile. Everyone else can probably quite safely save their money on this one.
4/10
UM's Review Rating Scale
Dark Remains' Official Website
Burning Misery Records' Official Website
Burning Misery Records - BM001 - 2006
By Philip Whitehouse
Holland's Dark Remains are one of those bands that annoys me. I don't know them personally or anything, you understand - they just belong to a certain group of bands that really piss me off round about the time I find myself having to write an entertaining and informative review (in no less than 200 words) about them. Because I can pretty much sum the band up like this; Dark Remains play basic, old-school death metal with barely a trace of innovation or originality. And there you have it.
Claiming to take inspiration from Immolation (I don't really hear it, personally) and 'slow Cannibal Corpse' (although a lot of the material here is pretty uptempo), Dark Remains combine workmanlike drumming, throaty growling vocals, tremolo-picked generic speedy riffage and chuggy generic mid-tempo riffage to utterly unexciting effect. Seriously, I've listened to this album all the way through about five times now, and I still can't bring to mind a single one of the riffs. It all just blurs by. The production is adequate (the guitars in particular having a nice meaty crunch to them), and nothing on Planet Earth Scourged is offensively bad... And that's the problem.
There's really nothing to say about them at all. If you're an old-school simplistic death metal obssessive, then yeah, maybe you should pick this up just for the sake of having every album in the pile. Everyone else can probably quite safely save their money on this one.
4/10
UM's Review Rating Scale
Dark Remains' Official Website
Burning Misery Records' Official Website
