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Dismal > Bewitched by the Moon > Reviews
Dismal - Bewitched by the Moon

Bewitched by Shittines - 35%

natrix, March 19th, 2008

Go back to the year 1999...I was living as an exchange student in a small French city, and eager to explore France's metal scene after hearing such bands as Loudblast, Mercyless, and Agressor. Lo and behold, on Halloween that year Dismal and a local band, Deiseal showed up and played in gig in the city in which I was living. Sadly, I could not attend, but made efforts to secure copies of both band's demo/debut CDs. Deiseal was not difficult to procure, as my favourite drinking hole sold it, but I couldn't get anything on Dismal. That is, until I read a review of this CD in some big name French zine, which praised it extensively and provided an address from which to procure the album. So I bought it and listened to it, quite disappointed by what I had purchased.

The main riffing style on here is sort of a slower thrash technique, inoffensive and quite often effective. The grooves and churning riffs that Dismal turns out are usually really well done, and almost get you headbanging. Take for example, the riff at the three minute mark of "Euthanasia" sets you up for something good, and they actually manage to continue for a while with a good shift of different crushing riffs. Drumming is solid, if unspectacular, the bass shines through in a few parts, lead work is tasteful, and the growling works pretty well with the overall picture.

So what is my problem with the album? A lot, so I shall break it down a bit.

The biggest offender has to be the use of major key riffage. These guys manage to ruin a manacing song by throwing in some happy riff that evokes scenes of playgrounds and gumdrop smiles. And it's not just that the riffs sound happy, sometimes they're played with a sort of surf music stumming that just screams emasculation. Take the title track, which goes through some really heavy riffage, only to break down to some limpwristed emo/hardcore shit in the chorus. "Abridge Your Pain," likewise, starts the CD off pretty strong, but then degenerates into some happy bullshit.

The next offender has to be the song structures themselves. As I've said, they manage to derail a perfectly decent song by throwing some lame, out of place riff, at least twice per song. Seriously, this shit makes Opeth sound as smooth as Metallica's black album. There are some moments where clean guitars or leads add a really nice touch, but other times it's as if they make abrupt changes just to use every fucking riff they came up with in practice.

Not to be outdone by the shitty major key riffage, we get some clean vocals which are some of the worst I've ever heard. Seriously, this guy sounds like some bum drugged to his gill on valium, shifting pitch ever so unsubtly to piss you right the fuck off, which is made exponentially by his thick accent and the idiotic lyrics with SHIT grammar.

Seriously, go and download the title track. The chorus, with the clean vocals with "black backing" just sounds pathetic. It's so bad, that I deducted a solid 30 points just for that shitty chorus...it sounds like two songs going on at once. This makes Anacrusis' "I Love the World" sound intelligent and testosterone driven.

Their inability to choose a specific style, or at least master one aspect of metal is evident in every song. "Manicheisme" starts off with some goofy ethnic clean thing, then its off to poorly played Dimmu Borgir...it really doesn't sound like they know what they're doing. "Anything for More" is almost Dismal's attempt to play "black metal" and it fails absolutely, especially with an opening riff that sounds like really, really bad Soul Asylum. Even the Nocturnus-esque riffing in places falls flat on its face. "Darkside" actually begins and maintains a good flow and builds beautifully, from a rather atmospheric beginning to a chunky verse, a nice prechorus, then a section that is rather melodic (using the clean vocals effectively for once). This is the only song that works here, without them fucking it up completely.

I can't see how Dismal has survived this long, unless their new stuff is much better than this pile of horseshit. For every moment they redeem themselves, Dismal stupifies themselves double.