review: The Black Dahlia Murder

The Black Dahlia Murder

Verminous

Metal Blade Records

17 April 2020

The ninth album finds the long-running act at glorious heights from their humble beginnings in Middle America when they were a young band of the new millennium. They are known for their good work ethic, and people know them for touring a lot and for being reliable in the making of albums, with a new one every two years, more or less. In short, such a serious, hardworking band has been able to carve out its own little niche in the market, and that’s a very nice achievement for them as a small, humble band that came up in the brave new world of music after 2000. The reputation the band has now, they got it from those concert goers that have seen them live in bars, house parties, front lawns, clubs, and street corners anywhere that will allow them to play. It is downright impressive what this stubborn little band from nowhere has done to survive doing the thankless job of playing extreme music.

Album number nine does at least three things of interest. First, the pace often stays within thrash and blasting speeds for moshing and headbanging songs. Second, the songwriting shows a great obsession with working in melodies into each song. This must be one of the reasons why they continue to be relevant; the guitar melodies are a highlight. Third, there is certain fun or memorable aspect to the songs, despite the fast tempos. This is fast melodic death metal, but the melodic aspect continues to be just as central as the extremity.

The vocals feel mostly like screechy growling. There are some lower, brutal death metal vocals, and the song “Child of Night” features such appealing growling almost completely, for example. While the music should appeal to fans of thrashy riffing, melodies, fast/shred guitar in general, the screechy vocals do require that the new listeners make up their own mind about this particular type of screaming.

theblackdahliamurder.bandcamp.com