Review: Dead Soul Alliance ‘Spiralling To Lunacy’
Following 2021’s very well received Behind The Scenes, Dead Soul Alliance have produced another ferocious, cerebral old school death metal record Spiralling To Lunacy.
Against a backdrop of a new wave of OSDM bands, Dead Soul Alliance have tapped into the more blackened, creepier, (even) more chilling side of the sound. We’re not at Emperor-style keyboard synths. However, arcane, spiralling melodies are very much on display.
Song titles and lyrical content also follow suit with names such as Condemnation Through Fear and False Reconciliation that are suitably authentic to classic death metal, but also recognisable in the world we live in today. That said, despite permitting themselves, this ‘whimsey’ (I’m being sarcastic), frontman W.D. and drummer E.H. still deliver this album with a muscular ‘no bullshit’ attitude.
Broadly speaking, it’s always great when the old guard, or in this case old sound, comes out to kick-ass. There are barbarous driving riffs, paired with ferocious blast beats and appropriately sicko-style melodies. Also notable is W.D.’s vocals are certainly not clean, but you can follow them solidly. We’re not in Demilich style-vocal territory here.
This is classic, brutal death metal done right…
What is really noticeable is that there is absolutely no filler within Spiralling To Lunacy. On New Normal Nihilist there is a shred of keyboard harmony, but for literally seconds before E.H.’s double-kick and W.D.’s guitar goes off like a bomb. The rest of the album follows suit and more power to the band for writing in this style, thirty-two-kick-ass-minutes is better than a dragged out forty-five-minutes. This is classic, brutal death metal done right. The savage title track, Spiralling To Lunacy, also deserves a special shout out for this. The verses are just pummelling and it is, in the best possible way, a true pit filler.
Speaking of pummelling, drummer E.H. does not relent once on this record. To take one example, Products Of Pain has hard ride cymbal hits and hectic blast beats pretty much throughout and if you know anything about drumming, you can appreciate this is tough. What’s more, the double kick does not sound like a trigger (at all – E.H. would probably kill me for bringing that up), so you should find your eyes widening when you hear it in full swing, it’s ‘br00tal’. W.D. matches this as well with the guitars working just as intensely as the drums, throwing out pinch harmonics and climbing, dissonant melodies with chaotic, brutal riffs.
There are some very high quality metal releases coming out of the courageous city of Ottawa and Dead Soul Alliance very much deserve to be heading up that pack.
Label: Cryptorium9
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
Scribed by: James Bullock
