Band: | Dagoba |
Album: | Different Breed |
Style: | Groove thrash metal, Industrial thrash metal |
Release date: | June 14, 2024 |
Guest review by: | Cynic Metalhead |
01. Genes15
02. Arrival Of The Dead
03. Distant Cry
04. Different Breed
05. Minotaur
06. Léthé
07. Phoenix Noir
08. At The End Of The Day
09. Vega
10. Cerberus
11. Alpha
These French metal titans have occupied an interesting space in my collection, primarily as hellbent consistent in pushing boundaries with their sound. This was accentuated in my experience ever since I was acquainted with What Hell Is About, their best album until Different Breed evolved into a concrete-cracking, mosh-inducing, serious face-stomping gargantuan beast in 2024.
Let’s get down to the business, shall we?
From the start, you’re thrown into a maelstrom of pulverizing riffs, double-bass drumming, and muffled bass rendering an intense ride that’s both technically precise and emotionally charged, as heard in tracks like “Arrival Of The Dead” and “Minotaur”. Vocalist Shawter’s performance is nothing short of a tour de force, seamlessly shifting between harsh gutturals and clean melodic hooks like in “Cerberus” and “Phoenix Noir”, creating an ebb and flow that keeps listeners on edge.
The guitar work on Different Breed is ravenous, with slabs of heavy groove-driven riffs, pounding drums and cutting thick bass mixed with the symphonics that are slobbering over “Different Breed” and “Distant Cry”. This layering is where Dagoba excel — never letting elements to overpower one another, but rather weaving them into one coherently powerful sonic medley, and that cuts the edge for a listener like me. The drumming is unceremoniously relentless, and the industrial tones lend the album a sharp, cold edge, evoking a sense of invocation that Dagoba seems to be soundtracking.
Different Breed is a pointier, sharper, punchier, meaner release than what they have produced in the past. It’s a bold manifesto proclaiming to pack the crowd into one giant whirlwind of a moshpit. It evolves their discography while retaining the power to stand out even more within and outside of France, and it is spectacularly appeasing with Different Breed to see the stakes raised high.
Highlights: “Arrival Of The Dead”, “Minotaur”, “Different Breed” and “Distant Cry”
Performance: | 9 |
Songwriting: | 8 |
Originality: | 7 |
Production: | 8 |
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
By: metalstorm.net