Right before my former writing job at Metal Maniacs went titties up, I had been given the assignment to do a couple of pages on Dodsferd, and the sole proprietor involved in the project, Wrath. (Just an a side note here; why is it that in all these one man projects the lone guy has his own made up name, and they all seem to insist on making up a second name for their bands? As in, “Hi, I’m Wrath, this is my band Dodsferd, which is just me. I’m the only guy. I’m Wrath.” Silly.).
Anyway, I had submitted a couple dozen questions that I perceived to be thoughtful, but literally a day after I sent them out the magazine folded. So all my queries remain unsatisfied.
Onto the album I have been tasked to review. The label PR guy I spoke with back then swore to me this is to be a full length release, and it has plenty of length with a 20 minute song and a 16 minute song, but this thing just feels like an EP to me. The 2 tracks on hand here (title track and “His Veins Colored the Room”) seem to be long for the sake of being long. The same riffs are repeated ad nauseum and, while they are good riffs, there is nothing here that couldn’t have been expressed within these songs in under 10 minutes each.
Dodsferd 2009 is quite a step away from the raw as fuck Black n’ Roll beginnings set forth on Fucking your Creation. The follow up to that album was 2007’s Cursing Your Will To Live which was already quite a drastic departure from that previous effort and was more akin to the more caustic but traditional fair, ala Horna or Behexen. Then came Death Set the Beginning To My Journey in 2008, which I was privileged to hear an advance stream of, but I no longer have it in hard copy or in an MP3 format. So I’m forced to judge Suicide…. on it’s own merits and I simply must say that the leaps Wrath has made within this project are shocking! It is as if he is jumping from one BM style to another, whether he is just covering all his bases, keeping listeners on our toes, or band wagon jumping I have no way of knowing. Perhaps it varies depending on just where this guys head is at any given moment. This release resides in the way slow, way eerie, and somewhat trance inducing blackened arena and appears to be pushing us all toward creating our own demise.
At the end of the day, I enjoy this cd, simply for what it is. Well played, solid material regardless of subgenre, it fits into the Dodsferd catalog simply by not fitting into any preconceived notions. It is startling to think that this is the same project that began only a few years ago, when I compare this album to th e previous releases that I am familiar with, it’s like night and day (not in a sunny sense ) delivered by 2 completely different entities.
Personally, I’m not convinced that this wasn’t conceptually an EP until it got into the labels hands due to a general dearth of ideas on hand, but the ideas that are presented within each track are strong and sinister in there own rights but if this thing is going for $14 and up range (as most Moribund stuff I see in stores is), just wait and get it used for the more accurate $8 price tag I believe it deserves. I smell label shenanigans, but I’m making a lot of assumptions at this point.
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Hey Hogg, did you include among the questions sent to Wrath why did he come up with a made-up name for himself and then another one for the band which consists of just himself?
on May 29th, 2009 at 08:59yes it did.
on May 29th, 2009 at 14:19Good point at the end about the price. I was going to pick this up because I thought the other albums were good, but 13+shipping is asking a little much for 36 minutes of material whether it is full length or EP.
on Jun 9th, 2009 at 11:09