Golem - Dreamweaver
Nuclear Blast - NB 1173-2 - 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
Before I start the review properly, I'd just like to state something outright about this album. Dreamweaver is a defiant middle finger thrust before the eyes of any who claim that death metal has become a stagnant, self-replicating genre incapable of further innovation. Got that? Right. Now, I'm going to seemingly shoot myself in the foot with one simple sentence. Ready? Good. Golem take Heartwork-era Carcass and Morbid Angel as their most obvious influences.
Confused yet? I was. But let me explain - far from doing what just about every other death metal group does and simply replicating the hyper-speed tempos and bizarre soloing that made Morbid Angel's name, or simply adding dual guitar leads and hooky melodies like Carcass, Golem have instead incorporated the experimental, mood-driven spirit of adventure that made Azagthoth's group some of the most influential in DM and taken on board the fact that melody and brutality are absolutely not mutually exclusive concepts, a fact that the UK grind veterans grasped years ago but which seems to have escaped everyone else.
Also, there's more than a little progressive influence here. The album is chaotic and complex in it's structure, with numerous tempo shifts, instruments playing on seperate rhythm grids to one another, some gorgeous near-neo-classical lead guitar work, and even - gasp - some uplifting moments amid the down-tuned bludgeon. See, for instance the contrast between the slow-grinding, nightmarish crawl of 'Breeder' and the NWOBHM-gets-brutal track 'Diaspora', which features some frankly beautiful guitar harmonising blended within the stuttering drum rhythms and growling guitars. Also, take note of the stunning atmospherics created by the inclusion of a keyboard in the sprawling epic, 'The Tower' - 7:31 of imaginative, mythical death metal straight from the avant-garde spectrum of brutality.
There are only a few niggles with the release - such an involving, labyrinthine compositional style as Golem's requires patience and concentration on the part of the listener to be fully absorbed, making this a heavy-going and sometimes even a tiring listen. This isn't background music by any means. Also, the guitar tone can sometimes seem too muddy to fully let the dissonant chord progressions on 'Roses' or the more hyperspeed riffs shine through the mix, so their impact is lost. Despite this, however, Dreamweaver is an album that deserves a place in every serious death metal fan's collection.
9/10
Nuclear Blast Records
Nuclear Blast - NB 1173-2 - 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
Before I start the review properly, I'd just like to state something outright about this album. Dreamweaver is a defiant middle finger thrust before the eyes of any who claim that death metal has become a stagnant, self-replicating genre incapable of further innovation. Got that? Right. Now, I'm going to seemingly shoot myself in the foot with one simple sentence. Ready? Good. Golem take Heartwork-era Carcass and Morbid Angel as their most obvious influences.
Confused yet? I was. But let me explain - far from doing what just about every other death metal group does and simply replicating the hyper-speed tempos and bizarre soloing that made Morbid Angel's name, or simply adding dual guitar leads and hooky melodies like Carcass, Golem have instead incorporated the experimental, mood-driven spirit of adventure that made Azagthoth's group some of the most influential in DM and taken on board the fact that melody and brutality are absolutely not mutually exclusive concepts, a fact that the UK grind veterans grasped years ago but which seems to have escaped everyone else.
Also, there's more than a little progressive influence here. The album is chaotic and complex in it's structure, with numerous tempo shifts, instruments playing on seperate rhythm grids to one another, some gorgeous near-neo-classical lead guitar work, and even - gasp - some uplifting moments amid the down-tuned bludgeon. See, for instance the contrast between the slow-grinding, nightmarish crawl of 'Breeder' and the NWOBHM-gets-brutal track 'Diaspora', which features some frankly beautiful guitar harmonising blended within the stuttering drum rhythms and growling guitars. Also, take note of the stunning atmospherics created by the inclusion of a keyboard in the sprawling epic, 'The Tower' - 7:31 of imaginative, mythical death metal straight from the avant-garde spectrum of brutality.
There are only a few niggles with the release - such an involving, labyrinthine compositional style as Golem's requires patience and concentration on the part of the listener to be fully absorbed, making this a heavy-going and sometimes even a tiring listen. This isn't background music by any means. Also, the guitar tone can sometimes seem too muddy to fully let the dissonant chord progressions on 'Roses' or the more hyperspeed riffs shine through the mix, so their impact is lost. Despite this, however, Dreamweaver is an album that deserves a place in every serious death metal fan's collection.
9/10
Nuclear Blast Records
