Let it be clear before starting my review: Daylight Dies has probably become with this album nothing but my favourite band. Please note this is not the assertion of a teenager whch has discovred music last year through MTV. I'm 29 and have been listening to dark music since i'm 16 or so. And seldom has a band reached so deeply what I actually feel inside each second of my life.
About feelings....
Dismantling Devotion deals about everything that brightens and ruins my existence...
The first listenings were overwhelmed by a sense of suffering throughout the album. Parts that I could find "catchy" in the previous releases have vanished. All is done to create a terrifying dark impact on the listener.
The melodic lines, the acoustic arpeggios sounds totally hopeless; Vocals are filled with suffering and hatred. And you soon feel like being desperately in need of breathe because of the oppressive feelings that pours out of each harmonies of this album.
You've never been so close from the perfect musical expression of what "resignation" is all about. The music tends to bring you to give up, to resign, ans clearly invites you to fall once for all.
And that's the moment, when all seems lost, that a brightful luminous part arrives, giving you the strength to rise and to go on, again, and again. This "please fall, you'll soon rise" feeling is mastered like no band has managed before. You soon find pleasure in waiting for these moments of relief and lull.
There is no weak moment in your album, no riffs that could sound too long. Everything just flows without a break.
About musicianship...
Dismantling Devotion has made me up with complex rythmics. In the last few years, I've lost interest and pleasure in the race for rythmic perplexity some bands has devoted to. It's just like "Look, I'm building the ultimate most chaotic riff in the world". And this demonstration of technicity has almost disgusted me of death metal actually.
With Dismantling Devotion, there is complex rythmical parts, but they just reach what they should always aim at: Efficiency. "Strive to see" is an incredible song, and has progressively grown to become my favourite track of the album. This riff at 3.30, is one of my finest moment in the album.
The bass brings its power of melodicity to the whole, and always participate to the dark harmony of a song.
The rythm guitars riffs often melt sharp parts with disharmonic arpeggios, which is quite effective.
The lead guitars always get the perfect effect. The velocity is used advisedly. The use of larsens (is it the english word?) is more discontinuous than on 'No Reply', where it was often used as a way to make a transition between two riffs. On this album, these transitions are more built rythmically, which shows the neverending skills of the composers.
The clean vocals really brings something new to your sound. "Solitary refinement" shows the intelligence of its use. (by the way Am I the only one hear who've heard David Sylvian feeling on the very first sung words ????)
As I've already told before, harsh vocals are filled with hatred and suffering, and are truly moving in the sincerity that emanates from it.
About the artwork
Awesome because of the multiplicity of personal interpretations you can get of each picture. Congratulations to Jeff Brubaker for his photographic skills. The picture illustrating "Dismantling Devotion" is my favourite one. Waiting for a poster of that one !
About the final track "Dismantling Devotion"
Just one more sentence: I can die without remorse after having heard such music:
A song to cry upon
A song to die upon,
A song to think upon,
A song to hope upon.
Thanks to all of you once again ! You made my day (or year, or life or whatever it will last) with Dismantling Devotion.
I will come back again in 5 years, when I will find default to this offering.