DAATH's newest album, The Concealers, has several good songs, impeccable musicianship and enough variety to consistently hold interest. It won't change your life, but good metal doesn't always need to, and for a heavy, catchy American death metal album, you could do a lot worse.
The Concealers sounds like a scorcher from the start. The punch-packing openers "Sharpen the Blades" and "Self-Corruption Manifesto" have solid, memorable riffs and typically spectacular drumming from former CHIMAIRA/MISERY INDEX/DYING FETUS timekeeper KEVIN TALLEY. Daath score one for death metal by keeping their songs relatively non-speedy. They've clearly got the chops to partake in the I-can-play-faster wars, which would've drowned out the psycho-circus rage on "…of Poisoned Sorrows" and "Wilting on the Vine," and it's refreshing to hear death metal that doesn't sound like it's in a race. Not that it's slow–"Silenced" sounds like it was conceived in Sweden, and it's easy to imagine any of the album's songs (save for the minute-long interlude "Duststorm") instigating a pit.
The industrial influences of their previous albums are disintegrating, and Daath currently sounds more like a death metal band that sometimes uses samples and keyboards than proteges of FEAR FACTORY. In the end, The Concealers is a welcome development for Daath, if nothing worth hyperventilating over, and hopefully they'll keep working with this lineup.
3 umlauts out of five
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