Now more known for having Bjorn “speed’ Strid (Soilwork, Terror 2000) in their ranks, Italy’s Disharmonia Mundi were actually a pretty progressive melodic death metal band before Strid joined the fold, as this re-issue of their 2002 debut shows.
While I was impressed with the (vastly under-rated) Strid era albums (2006s Mind Tricks and 2004s Fragments of D-Generation), it seems back in 2002, Disharmonia Mundi were a slightly more progressive act, even with Strid supplying clean vocals on his contributions, back in 2002, then vocalist Benny Bianco Chinto was plying his own clean croons and the music was less straightforward and full of more layering and melodies as opposed to more up tempo, urgent thrashing of the last two albums. Admittedly though, the vocals, both rasped and clean are the albums weak point, and I can see why Strid was brought in.
That being said there is some solid, traditional, energetic melo-death riffage such as “Burning Cells” and “Mechanichell” , but the song are generally more in depth and varied with a more progressive, patient delivery than the newer albums. Tracks like “Blue Lake”, “Guilty Claims” and “Demiurgo” are pretty lengthy and more languid, with a bit more restraint and control with numerous tangents, interludes and injections of almost experimentation. At times they veer into more somber, despondent territory like their Finnish doom/death brethren (i.e. Rapture) as heard on the fine title track.
As a bonus, Coroner Records has included a six track CD called Restless Memoirs as part of this dual disc digipack. A collection of unreleased tracks written between 1999 and 2006, Restless Memoirs’ shorter, direct tracks are more indicative of the direction the band took with Fragments of D-Generation – as Strid less tracks tracks like “Across The Burning Surface” and “Spiral Dancer” are still more polished, tighter, faster, more thrash based and much higher octane.
Coroner Records (incidently owned by Disharmonia Mundi founder Ettore Rigotti) is of to a solid start with this and the Destrage releases as their first two efforts and I’ll be interested what new gems or classic releases they come up with in the melodic death metal genre in the future.
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I really liked Nebularium better than anything the band has put out with Strid. They sound too much like Soilwork now. Nebularium was Opethy and I liked the vocals better. Good review Erik.
on Jul 22nd, 2009 at 07:53When was Strid ever in Scar Symmetry, Erik? Are you sure you not just mistaking him because he looks a lot like Christian Ãlvestam?
on Jul 22nd, 2009 at 22:43When was Strid ever in Scar Symmetry, Erik? Are you sure you not just mistaking him because he looks a lot like Christian Ãlvestam?
on Jul 23rd, 2009 at 04:17P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
dang- my mistake- will fix
on Jul 23rd, 2009 at 07:39Come on E. We can’t have this. LOL!
on Jul 23rd, 2009 at 08:24LoL Someone posed as me in that second post and the link leads to a website for whitening teeth. Wow!
on Jul 25th, 2009 at 12:23