Disfear - Live the Storm
Sweden's Disfear have made significant upgrades over the years. The first was switching from their well-meaning but ultra-lame original name, Anti-Bofors. (You can download some Anti-Bofors here.) The second was signing At the Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg as a free agent, making Disfear the 387th band he's been in. The last was adding ex-Entombed guitarist Uffe Cederlund, who has the coolest first name in metal. Now Disfear are like the 2004 Lakers of d-beat, minus the choking in the finals.Disfear's innovation is transcending the d-beat sound to write actual songs. The addition of Cederlund has yielded much more melody and two-guitar interaction, in contrast to the monolithic riffing of before. Kurt Ballou's recording brings this out; ironically, it's a bit cleaner than Mieszko Talarczyk's (RIP) grimefest on 2003's Misanthropic Generation. It's still dirty, though, and the hyper-compressed mastering actually helps flatten the layers into a singular warhead. In other words, this record is loud as hell. Normally, I'd complain, but the songs are so catchy that I don't mind. And it's not like this is the most dynamic material. This is d-beat; it's supposed to kick ass. Disfear are just more sophisticated than most at it.
Live the Storm is available physically at Relapse and The End, and digitally at Amazon.
Labels: clee, d-beat/crust punk, sweden
3 Comments:
I've hesitated on replying to this until I had my own review fleshed out. I'm still not sure what to think. Song writing wise and lyrically, I think I agree that in some areas this indeed may be the pinnacle of D Beat.
What troubles me though is all that damned guitar melody. I understand having to add some to keep the monotony away, and the general trend in all HC related music now is to have that stuff, but come on this is D Beat. It's like dropping a $30k metal flake paint job on an old 4 speed Nova. It just doesn't fit the character.
Heh, you're definitely an anti-melody guy. I don't mind it here, as it elevates this record beyond being just another raging d-beat jam.
I really dig this record. Is Kurt Ballou the producer of the year or what??
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