Mass Burial: The Black Dahlia Murder, Miasma

The second album from The Black Dahlia Murder takes on more of a traditional Death metal feel, still retaining the Swedeath vocal style but musically moving into a more solid, less hyperkinetic musical direction. This is not to say that’s a bad thing, as it works for the band and their style. Some Gothenburg elements are still present, but this time around, they are more accents or flourishes, as can be heard in “Statutory Ape”. Songs like “A Vulgar Picture” retain the Swedish much more obviously, but other songs do show signs of moving away from that. A super fast 33 minutes, Miasma does a lot of work in a pretty short time.

And it’s not 33 Swedish-free minutes, not at all. That element is still found at the core of each song, but the band seems to have expanded their writing process to incorporate more traditional Death metal writing. In general, it’s progression through regression, but it makes for a fuller sounding listen, as in there’s more happening, more than just the appeal or intrigue of an American band writing in the then-foreign style of another country’s scene.

My friend, who loves this band and is the reason I am engaging in this exercise, never mentions Miasma, preferring the first and next albums by the band. And I think I can understand why. Miasma is a good album; that cannot really be denied. It is competent and solid and enjoyable. If you do not care for the style, or the band, or whatever, then certainly you’d possibly not care for this album. But this is not a bad record. It’s just kind of . . . is. The songs are good, well written and fast. They retain a lot of the same elements from the self-titled album, so if you were or weren’t on board with that album, you’ll probably have a similar response to this one. But Miasma is just one of those albums, of which there are plenty, that kind of just is. While it plays, the listening experience is a positive one.  But once it ends, it is simply over, and usually feels like it ended before it really got itself started. It feels like an album of background noise, that kind of music that plays and ends and you know you were listening to something, but have a hard time remembering what it was. Most of the time, when this album has concluded, I’ve found myself thinking, “That’s it?” As in, it’s already over, but it seems like it just started.

Almost everything that I want to say about Miasma sounds in my head like it will be overly negative, and I really don’t mean things in that sense. When the album ends, I hit play again, and enjoy my way through it a second time. This is not an unpleasant listening experience, and in truth, the debut album felt kind of the same. It’s good, but it’s not the type of thing that I find caught in my mind later in the day. Maybe this is a result of the songs being so short: both albums so far feature songs that rarely cross the four minute mark, so they are attempting to deliver a lot of song in a very short amount of time. Perhaps if songs were longer, if they were allowed to stretch out and breathe before being supplanted by the next track, things would be more memorable. As they are, songs are concentrated. “A Vulgar Picture” ends with a sample, and that feels like it should be the real start of the album in terms of pace and tone. Like this should be the second or third track, that point in a listen when you think, “Ok, things are about to really get going.”

“A Vulgar Picture” is the fifth song. There are ten on the record.

But it’s an enjoyable transience. I just wish it was more substantial. A dude I used to know would have called this album, and by extension the band, a “party band.” What he generally meant by that was that The Black Dahlia Murder, over the course of these first two albums at least, are the kind of band you could put on at a party of metalhead friends, and no one would be upset. No one would be particularly enthused, unless they were already fans of the band, and no one would be particularly upset. The music would be contextually appropriate and enjoyable, just not very engaging. I would agree with that as a general assessment.

I like this album. It has helped me through a lot of essay grading so far this semester, by keeping me entertained and awake. And I just like it personally. When I attempt one of these discography ventures, I listen to each entry a number of times so that I feel I’ve got an understanding of the thing I’m trying discuss. And I have listened to Miasma many times, and I have never caught myself thinking “Man, Miasma again,” not even when I’ve had to play it twice in a row to have any real impact. I’d be tempted to call this record the bands’ sophomore slump, and that may prove to be true. Not bad, oh no. Just kind of unmemorable. I don’t find that overly surprising, as this subspecies of Death metal is not really the kind of thing that has strong staying power in my mind, although it is always an enjoyable listen. So it maybe just me, but I enjoy Miasma; I just don’t find it to have a lasting presence.