Disma ‎– Towards The Megalith

Decrepitaph. Dead Congregation. Father Befouled. What do all these bands have in common? Why, following the trend of wanting to sound like Incantation, of course. It seems to have struck a chord with death metal fans, who, like the aforementioned bands, seem to be stuck in a bygone era; they also bear the mind-set that death metal should only sound a certain way, therefore stagnating a great deal of innovation within the genre -- even though there wasn't much to begin with.

You can add Disma to that list. Nothing they do here is original in the least; it's painfully by-the-numbers, Incantation-worship, and Craig Pillard's vocals certainly don't help any. Now, I respect him completely as a vocalist; his work in Evoken is excellent. But here, he does nothing to make these songs anything more than plodding, unmemorable affairs. The riffs are blander than hell, offering nothing to adhere to. Now, one might contend that the whole point of the album is to be overwhelmed by its atmosphere, which is supposedly 'vile' and 'dirty'. I get no such feeling from this. Autopsy's Mental Funeral on the other hand? Yes. That is an album that has an overwhelming atmosphere, yet also has interesting riffs and -- more importantly -- DIVERSITY.

This 'retro' trend is, in my opinion, the cancer of metal. Metal is supposed to be about thinking for yourself -- not conforming to anything or anyone. It is not about venerating the altar of another band. This is no worse than other bygone trends, such as grunge, nu-metal and so forth. One might say that I'm overexaggerating -- but the fact that it's so easily profitable and widespread, is proof enough of its shallow, manufactured nature.