I have a friend who loves this band, but they’ve never
really made much of an impression on me. In the early 2000s, The Black Dahlia
Murder gained attention for being comprised of teenagers and playing what
sounded like a fairly competent version of Swedeath, which, during those same
early 2000s, was the sexy subgenre of Metal of the day. This was back in the
day, those good old days, when a band full of younger people was viewed more
often as being the future of a scene, or a sign that the scene was alive and
communicating with the younger generation, or that the seeds of the future were
beginning to sprout. You know, generally good things, unlike today, where a
similar youthful band would be greeted with skepticism or scorn, cast off as
sell outs or a corporate creation meant to capitalize and cash in. I heard this
album back in the day, and saw the band open for Suffocation in early 2005, but
was never all that impressed. My only real memory from the show was that they
had to finish their set a song or two early because they had to be on their bus
by curfew, because they were all underage at the time. The album never made an
impression on me, and I’m not entirely sure why: during those years, Swedish melodeath
was all the rage, and the titans of the form at the time (In Flames, Dark
Tranquillity, ) were releasing good material; the corpse of At the Gates was
still reasonably fresh, or at least, was in that stage of decomposition where
mourners had at least seen it, unlike today, when recent album notwithstanding,
most people talk about At the Gates as a band they’ve heard, and not one that
was active not that long ago.
But, a friend of mine really likes them, and reps them
constantly; so I decided that I should give the band another, honest shot. Why
not make them the focus of a Mass Burial, since I do want to take in the entire
catalog so as to be able to discuss them with my fan friend.
In 2003, I bought Unhallowed
and gave it a few spins. It didn’t leave much of an impression, and frankly, I
don’t remember if I even liked it. Now, in 2017, it is hard to listen to Unhallowed and not think of it as being
a record from 2003: it is Swedeath of the era to a T. Following the brief
instrumental title track, the record kicks off with “Funeral Thirst,” a
textbook melodeath circa-2003 track. The drumming, the guitar work, the vocals,
the solo . . . man, that solo. Man, those vocals. Textbook track, perhaps;
nothing out of the early 2000s ordinary, sure; but look who had been reading
that textbook. At the time of Unhallowed’s
release, the band members were all like 16 years old. That’s kind of
impressive. In fact, that is the one thing that I actually do remember about my
exposure to the record all those years ago: the members were still kids.
“Elder Misanthropy,” the second actual song, furthers this.
The main riff is cool, a real Swedish effort. The whole album sounds like an
offering from a Swedish band. And on, and on it goes, each song a catchy,
competent piece of melodic Death metal.
This brings us to a point, two songs in, where we can no
longer ignore the real features of the initial Black Dahlia Murder album. No
matter what your opinion of it is, you have to acknowledge that Unhallowed is a record from 2003. And
that is the thing that I keep trying to dance around, but no longer feel I can.
Back in 2003, for those of you who weren’t there, this style
of metal was everywhere. Every. Where. Labels were pouncing on every Swedish
melodic Death metal band they could find, as the “Gothenburg style” had
replaced Symphonic Black metal as the trend of interest. You could not pick up
a magazine (what internet?) or go to a record store or a show without being
presented with some Swedeath. Every issue of Brave Words and Pit and Terrorizer
had at least one article, however short, about some new Gothenburg up and
comer, even if that article was the first and last time you’d ever hear of
them. Every record store was putting CDs from these bands in places that would
catch your eye, because it was selling. Sure, it was a trend, and yeah, some
people didn’t like it. Yes, some people decried it as the death of Metal,
again. But there it was: a more accessible, Thrash-esque, melodic kind of
“Death” metal that was also sort of appealing to Hardcore audiences. It was a
sound that had crossover appeal; honestly, I’m surprised it never turned up on
MTV or the radio. It was still too tough a sound for those kinds of outlets,
though. Another thing that was problematic about the genre was that it was
difficult for bands to separate themselves from each other. The general
Gothenburg template is pretty rigid, and there has not been much variance among
its practitioners. So, it ended up being a real popular yet real polarizing
form: you either loved it or hated it.
I loved it, until I was totally bored of it. To this day,
records like Clayman and Haven are among my most favorite
memories of those times, and I feel like I checked out every one of those
Swedish Death metal bands. I remember being disappointed when Soilwork changed
their direction into . . . whatever it was that they started doing, after
records like The Chainheart Machine and
A Predator’s Portrait. Unhallowed came along right about the
time when I was reaching peak saturation with the form, but it was advertised
as being something different. For starters, the band was young, and from
Michigan, and so it was billed as being a young American Swedish Death metal
band, something of a first. Some of the more crossover bands had already begun
incorporating Swedeath tendencies, or were being cross listed with the Swedeath
bands, in the way that every trend sucks up the surrounding close-enoughs to
help bolster the ranks of the trendy until additional, purer players can be
found. So many of the bands of this style sounded like each other, and most
songs shared some common elements. The Black Dahlia Murder was no different
back then, but were spoken of as being different, because of their ages and
place of origin.
If you look for reviews on Metal Archives for this record,
you’ll find plenty of them that deride this record for reasons of similarity to
others of its era. And it is true that, taken just on its own, Unhallowed is ANOTHER melodic Death
metal outing from a period in time that gave us plenty of melodic Death metal
offerings. I didn’t think that there was much to set this one apart back in the
day, and I’m not entirely sure there’s a lot to set it apart all these years
later. But one thing that is hard to deny is that it is a quality melodic Death
metal offering, something that many of its contemporaries can’t lay claim to. Often,
with this subgenre, “quality” refers to the condition of ones’ enjoying it, and
not finding it boring; but such is the way of styles that are as self-referential
as the Gothenburg style. When you factor in that the musicians on here were
still teenagers, the degree of execution and accuracy they display should push
the needle a few degrees to the positive.
Every song on the album fits the Gothenburg mold: rapid
double bass drumming, frantic guitar riffs, bouncy, galloping riffs,
core-styled time cuts that produce the Swedish version of the breakdown, the
shrieky vocals – although The Black Dahlia Murder tempers these with some more
growling moments, maybe in the vein of the gore grind bands like Exhumed or
Impaled, to drop another early 2000s trend – the part that you know will be the
mosh part at a show.
Listening to Unhallowed
now, in 2017, sort of for the first times again, it is a fine album, and a
good first album for a band. Perhaps a better first album from a band of teens.
The idea that it was Americans playing Swedish Death metal at one point kind of
mattered, but the bloom is off that rose all these years later. In 2003, that
was an anomaly, a curiosity, as Swedish bands played Swedish Death metal, and
American bands played American Death metal. The national boundaries were strong
at the start of the millennium: Norwegian and Swedish Black metal bands were
instantly recognizable from each other, and Death metal bands were the same
way. Now the cross pollination of music has reached the point where point of
origin really doesn’t matter: Canadian bands write songs about Vikings, and
Chilean bands play Scandinavian style Black metal. No one cares any longer. My
knowledge of The Black Dahlia Murder ends after this album, so I’m not really
sure what’s to come, and whether or not they kept up the “Swedish” style or
morphed into something else, or if it even matters or is recognizable that they
are still playing in the Swedeath style.
I think that the best things I can say about Unhallowed are the following: I have
listened to the album several times in order to feel I had enough to say to
write about it, and that it is both a pleasant reminder of the early 2000s and
it serves as an overlooked gem from that same time period. For the repeated
listens, the album deserves them: it is a short, 36 minute affair, so it easily
fits in listening sessions that may not be long enough to be attentive to something
else, and it is also a rewarding 36 minute experience. As has been mentioned so
many times on this blog, I am a sucker for and slave to nostalgia, and if music
especially makes me feel nostalgic, that is a categorical win. The way this album seems frozen in the amber
of 2003 makes me happy: it’s not just that that was when the album was
released, it’s that everything about the album screams 2003. And, it is
something that I missed the first time around, so I got to discover a little
slice of 2003 here in 2017, and when so much of the world and everyday news is
horrible chaos, that tether back to a simpler time makes me feel comfortable.
In closing, let me contrast this first Black Dahlia Murder
album to another record and band that, back in the day, was getting a lot of
attention as well, because one in particular keeps hopping around in my brain
while I write this, that being Cattle Decapitation’s To Serve Man. Cattle Decapitation was another band that got a lot
of press, mainly for a non-musical gimmick, that being the band members were
(or are, as I think they’re still around) vegans. Their first major album To Serve Man was released to some hype,
and I bought it, and heard it, and then forgot about it. Every once in a while,
I wipe the dust off of Cattle Decapitation and give them another try, thinking
I must have just missed something way back when. The first few minutes of
listening brings me the same type of musical nostalgia that Unhallowed brings, but then it is
quickly replaced by disinterest. Where Unhallowed
makes me want to listen again, even if nothing in particular gets lodged in
my brain, To Serve Man makes me feel
like I wasted my time, and that whatever it is that makes that album and its
band special is just lost on me. I get upset that I can’t find that thing. With
Unhallowed, I never found that thing
back in the day, but it seems much clearer to me now. Not one that I’d put in
that list of great albums that I just didn’t understand when they were new, but
definitely one that I enjoy listening to now. It feels fresh all this time
later, and that has a lot of Gothenburg also-rans beat.
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