New Project of Kaiser W. Ad Hominem with members of Eternity, Frangar, Forgotten Tomb, Wolfsmond, Darkmoon Warrior and Gosforth called "Dead?".
I'd like to get it out of the that this band's page currently says they're from Italy, but Kaiser is a Frenchman (and his other bands are from France as well). And this is definitely french black metal -- the region itself is known for a certain sound and a sense of melody that a lot of the bands seem to naturally possess. That in itself makes some of these songs very fun and often even somewhat bouncy. It's all well constructed, and isn't really all that bad of a black metal release. I'd certainly choose to listen to it over most boring modern black metal acts, but... Something just feels a bit off.
See, what Kaiser wants to do is make straightforward black metal that relies almost completely on riffs and lots of blasting. There are actually a few moments where the bass gets to do stuff (see: "Rigor Mortis"), but for the most part the attention is completely on the guitar and to a lesser extent the vocals vocals. Kaiser and his guests are good vocalists, I'll give them that, but they're nothing too special. He still manages to get a few catchy vocal hooks out there though, so I'll give credit where it's due. But anyway, back to the riffs -- there aren't a whole lot of them. I realize and fully accept that one of black metal's big factors is often repetition. It's been a part of the genre for a very, very long time and its one of the things that makes black metal unique. But the thing with repetitive riffing is that, to make good music, your riffs have to lend themselves well to repetition. They've got to pack enough punch and memorability to make the listener want to hear them again or you're just going to bore them.
And that's the problem with Dead?'s self-titled debut. Some of the songs seem good on the surface, but a lot of them are both somewhat short and lacking in memorable riffing. Many of the riffs here seem very generic and don't stick in my head at all. Things already start declining after "Rigor Mortis", which is a noticeable step down from the cool semi-mid era Mütiilation worship of "The Abject". "Contempt Unlimited" is just useless, being under 3 minutes long and completely devoid of anything more than mildly interesting. A lot of the songs on here suffer like this, and its sort of sad to have to admit it. Multiple songs under three minutes on a black metal album is just ridiculous, especially when the genre is so well-suited to letting the music have time to grow over the course of the song. The production seems to have been aimed at this too, with a fairly misty sound and some crunchy fuzz coming from the guitars.
But really, at the end of the day, many of these songs are simply just good black metal for when you don't want to think too deeply about your music. It's got a bunch of catchy riffs here and there, some filler songs, and an odd martial-sounding song that feels fairly out of place. I feel like this band could be a bit more promising in the future if Kaiser would focus some more on creating slightly more intricate riffs as well as putting more riffs into each song. When he does manage to do this it works pretty well (see: "The Abject" and "Le Mort Joyeux", which is probably the best song on here with it's sad melodies and some powerful vocal work), but he just doesn't do it enough. Maybe the next album will be better?
Sample: Rigor Mortis - Dead?
