Deride
The Void

The cover looks very interesting with nice colour and a decent artwork as well, and the title could be interpreted as interesting. This is what meets us who take a look at norwegian band Deride’s first album in almost a decade, an album which is their third since the debut album that saw the light of day in 2001. The question is wether or not it was worth the wait for the fans, the label states that it clearly is describing it as a “killer album”. “Prepare to get bruised” they end the press information, I wonder if it is because you are being beaten by neighbours because of the disturbing music or for some other reason. The quartet has a partially changed line-up since last time and they have finished ten tracks which they are ready to assault the world with.

It is modern aggressive metal with influences of thrash, hardcore, power metal as well as nu-metal. Not much voidish stuff can be hear in the music so you have to wonder a little about the title, it is clearly not a reflection of what we get to hear. The vocals can be described as kind of crowlike and I would say that they are more annoying than they are aggressive, not particularly good are they but they to harmonise rather well with the music. Ten tracks of aggression it is and that means that it is not particularly varied over those tracks which are rather short and to the point, as is the production which I would describe as decent but rather average in comparison with how it sounds today.

I cannot say that this album is overly impressive, it sounds more or less like anything else in the aggressive metal/hardcore genre and offers absolutely nothing fresh or unique in terms of musical perception. The opening track Deathshake and ending Lesson Learned are rather good tracks which brighten the outlook of this album slightly although to be honest that does not make it very worth listening to anyway. I would say that the main letdown of this album is the lack of creative ideas, the lack of variation and the bland songs. Moreover the album feels rather long to listen to thanks to the lack of variation in the songs and I would believe that it is an album that only will appeal to those who are already heavily into this kind of music or are fans of this band.

I am not saying that all bands has to bring something new to the table but it never hurts to do something that sets you apart from everything else there is in the genre and that is nothing this band appears to be thinking about let alone doing. Two decent tracks hardly makes this an album worth even checking out but still I guess you could say that it is okay (just) but it will probably only be something worth having for those who are already fans of the band. And with that said I guess you could conclude that an interesting cover doesn’t have to mean that the album is interesting.