Universe

Montreal’s DBC were a thrash/crossover band, who only managed to release two albums in their career, but still left a lasting impression on the scene. After releasing their self-titled ‘Dead Brain Cells’ of 1987, it was apparent that these musicians felt they were meant for more than aggressive crossover, even if this album was a well put together take on the form. A concept album about the history of the universe may have been a slight misstep in vaulting ambition for a second full length however.

But in 1989 that is what we got with the release of ‘Universe’. If I were to describe an album as a progressive thrash concept album about the dawn and history of the universe and all of time, one might expect a two hour double length album complete with symphonic orchestra, operatic backing vocalists, samples ripped from Carl Sagan’s cosmos and endless self-indulgent prog riffs. You may be relieved to discover that this is not the case with DBC’s ‘Universe’. No, instead we are given just over half an hour of competent progressive thrash riffs, neatly tied together by leads, solos, and tempo changes sometimes calling to mind Voivod of the same era. The vocals, crafted to fit the sci-fi theme and imagery of this album, are essentially a set of robotic spoken word passages describing the development of our universe to the rise of humanity. The unusual keys and time signatures are a challenge for any vocalist, and they must have decided that a punky shout would not do justice to this music. Phil Dakin was clearly not up to the task of singing tunes to this complex music, so a compromise was reached in the form of talking.

The problem with this album, is that when these musicians were playing fast, aggressive crossover, their precision and competence led an urgency and undeniable lure to their take on this otherwise primitive music. For crossover, it was extremely well written, and yes, even proggy at times, something of a milestone considering that crossover sits well within the group of subcultures noted for their anti-prog sensibilities. So when they turned their attention to prog proper, the music falls short of what other artists were achieving in the late 1980s. It is not so much that if you treat this album as a crossover album it suddenly becomes good, the music does not let you.

One cannot deny their ambition, and their competence does carry them a long way to achieving what they set out to do. But concept albums are a risky game. They tend to set the artists up for failure before the writing process has even begun. DBC did not need to double the length of this album , embellish the complexity, and indulge in neoclassical flourishes in order to do justice to their subject matter. Rather, the fact that these musicians decided to turn their attentions to writing about the history of all of space and time may have distracted them from creating well-crafted prog-thrash, which is what their first album hinted at. Despite all this criticism, DBC's two offerings remain forgotten classics that are well worth the time of any fan of 1980s thrash, or heavy metal in general for that matter.

DBC probably released this album prematurely, and it is a shame they split up shortly after its release, I would be curious to see how this music would have developed. It remains a fun outing in imaginative thrash metal that is well worth your time. It is an affliction of musicians once they reach a certain level of competency, when it morphs into virtuosity, they occasionally forget to write the music. The result is music for musicians, an exploration in talent and mathematics, rather than artistic depth and intellectualism.

Having said that, 'Universe' remains an imaginative album that is well worth your time.

Originally published for https://hatemeditations.wordpress.com

“Dad Brain Cells” my ass; the music presented on the album reviewed here can only increase your brain capacity. I still suspect Einstein and the other geniuses from the distant past had somehow had access to music of the kind, one to enhance their intellectual abilities and propel them to other unfathomable dimensions.

A lot of the speed/thrashing bashers (Destruction, Deathrow, Living Death, Voivod, etc.) from the mid-80’s stopped to look around at some stage, asking themselves whether they really liked this interesting primal noise they were producing… or they were actually capable of creating much more engaging and challenging music. Our “brain donors” here were one of them. It’s not that their energetic, uplifting thrash/crossover debut was a weak effort by any means; it’s just that they knew they could do more within the metal boundaries, and contribute more fully to the overall expansion of the Universe.

With Voivod (“Killing Technology”, “Dimension Hatross”) and Savage Steel (“Do or Die”) having already pricked the unbreakable, conservative “ozone layer” of direct, no-bars-held metal on Canadian soil, the album reviewed here only had to follow an already sketched trajectory. Well, not exactly since the guys had other visions, ones that didn’t quite coincide with those of their other colleagues, consequently producing a “marvel” of a slightly different kind. The moment “The Genesis Explosion” starts creeping forward with these trippy melodic rhythms, the fan knows that there won’t be any brain cells dead; on the contrary, he/she may have to start looking for a bigger head as their number will be inordinately increased in the next 38-min; emergency situation for sure partly relieved by the steady mid-tempo riffage before a sudden speedy passage brings memories of the debut, aggravating the atmosphere to headbanging proportions. “Heliosphere” is a hallucinogenic progressive experience, amazingly confounded to just under 3-min, swirling bouncy guitarisms with a psychedelic aura which move up and down the intensity scale the whole time to a dizzying, also dramatic effect. “Primordium” is an even more surreal shredder with gradual pounding riffs steam-rolling forward in a morose, officiant manner still letting a speedy stroke slip through the cracks towards the end. The instrumental “Exit the Giants” begs to differ, though, and a pile of fast intense riffage pours over the unsuspecting listener who will have no choice but to “endure” this energizing cannonade which later makes room for jarring, quasi doomy Confessor-esque developments.

“Rise of Man” elaborates on those minimalistic doomy tools adding a pinch of weird Voivod-ish jumpiness to the proceedings which evolve in a patient serpentine-like fashion with more melodic tunes added to the fore, those reaching operatic dimensions at the end. “Estuary” is a speedy estuary… sorry, escapade the guys creating a melee of vigorous, dynamic arrangements this hyper-active barrage receiving a couple of less ordinary embellishments. “Humanity’s Child” has a most enchanting melodic hook as a start, but afterwards the band give way to their more aggressive nature with hard-hitting thrashing heavily involved, with mazey progressive complications turning this cut into a psychotic, multifarious masterpiece worthy of Mekong Delta and Coroner. “Phobos & Deimos” is sustained in the same vein sounding even close to the mentioned Swiss masters weaving tapestries of overlapping riffs which refuse to follow a regular pattern, but are perennially configured in various more or less expected time-signatures the few more dynamic sections restoring some normality, not without the help of beautiful melodic ornamentations thrown in mid-way, all this leading to the climactic head-spinning epitaph. “Threshold” is another Coroner-esque twister with consistent mid-paced intricacy surrounding the listener who should have no problems following the stylish, relatively predictable rifforamas. “Infinite Universe” is a most logical finish, both music and text-wise, to this compelling diverse saga with the gradually escalating tension which inevitably hits the fast-paced parametres, the latter coming close to death metal even, a spellbinding contrast formed with the bizarre melodic additives and the atmospheric doomy finale.

The word “auteurs” simply begs to be used here to describe the unique approach to music applied on this “universal” opus. In a manner quite reminiscent of Voivod’s last two (at the time) the delivery transcends the borders of thrash and embarks on a journey around the progressive metal kaleidoscope without following any rigid canons. The experimentation is not as ostentatious as the one on the works of their compatriots as thrash is still featured prominently giving a nice dynamic flavour to the complex mosaics, a more belligerent edge that I personally miss on “Dimension Hatross”, for example. The thrash metal fanbase would still be bemused by what the guys had cooked here, but bewildered faces would be more than just an isolated phenomenon in the crowd; it won’t be easy for one to swallow all the nuances present at just one listen as a layer after layer of visionary musicianship will be peeled off after each subsequent exposure to it. On the other hand, one won’t get tired of it as the whole panorama clocks on under 40-min, and everything flows quite smoothly and effortlessly, with a weird airy spaced-out feel, excluding the few unnerving time-signatures already mentioned towards the end.

Mentioning spacing out, there was by all means more room for more eccentricity and eclecticism to be applied to this exciting amorphous musical formula, but while the audience were anticipating the band’s version of “Nothingface” or “No More Color”, they announced the end of their spell with the music industry. A sad follow-up which at least had a posthumous sequel six years later, “Unreleased”, a mini-album comprising six unreleased tracks, a pretty decent but not as visionary affair mixing the immediacy of the debut with the psychedelic intricacy of the album reviewed here; by all means worth checking out albeit inferior to those “sounds of the Universe”; sounds that still ring in the ears of brave explorers, intrepid scientists, occult stargazers, and a bunch of inebriate metalheads from across the street.

“…weapons of stone and steel swinging like pendulums…”

It seems from the time they started writing material for their follow-up, DBC worked to shed the skin of its finesse-less and debilitating moniker, a skin that was often construed as a crucial blow to the group’s credibility that would affect everything from their first breath to nearly any future development they could have. Despite this, some people bought debut Dead Brain Cells, an unclean creature of slightly better than average intelligence, and perhaps proved to be a little more than expected. Yeah, while the lyrical litter is an unsalted ingredient and bouts of hardcore speed were never in doubt, it’s go-rounds like “M.I.A.”, “Public Suicide”, and “Tempest” that made tangible the awareness of something on a higher level was slowly crawling out of hiding. Of course, some didn’t care. They just wanted, or expected, the surface they purchased it for.

Musically, Universe is the band’s adolescent progressiveness growing into manhood. Instincts sharpen, intuition thickens, brains evolve, and with added confidence skill wields more composite, well-oiled weaponry, and with these ten tracks DBC’s unchanged membership liberate themselves from the low light confines an ill-chosen name had built. But there are almost always sacrifices. The debut’s greasy ‘87 undercarriage lost a minor battle with (too)-often-used tech-thrash soapiness, meanwhile the bulk of its benchmark velocity had been sliced, diced, and ultimately sprinkled throughout the album like falling girders, finding some refuge in “Humanity’s Child”, aggressive “Phobos and Deimos”, fairly furious “Estuary”, and not-so-wordless “Exit the Giants”. In trade, we’re carved some fairly intrepid, fairly inventive, and fairly digestive progressive thrash from the complex side of the metal mountain, an area where something like “Rise of Man” can uncoil with spring-loaded, prog-minded ascension.

Whether Eddie Shahini and Gerry Ouellette (RIP) threw birthday parties for one another or hated each other’s guts, I don’t know, but it’s pretty clear they turned pages with timing close to spot-on. All is tight, concerted, and for the most part arranged interestingly enough, and new producer Garth Richardson makes sure this essential signal from space is at least reasonably rugged, obvious to the naked ear, and free of the mix-slaying dark matter that especially ornery thrash/hardcore has smeared on past productions like cold grease.

Though it’s not a huge deal, these guys seemed to wear their current playlists on their sleeves with little discomfort. “The Genesis Explosion”, “Threshold” and others sometimes settle into a head-bobbed, similarly-crunched, slow/mid-paced gait that grooves South of Heaven-style, and it’s with some coincidence that Phil Dakin’s now monotonously non-urgent, overlaid, and sometimes near-spoken word approach ails with comparable, year-old Araya symptoms during these many sequences. As a side note, most of “Heliosphere” enjoys smooth, Coroner-twirled propulsion, and “Primordium” finds DNA of both in its cellular activity.

Universe is also a conceptually different ballgame. Observations concerned with creation, space, ecology, religion, and light philosophy are healthy enough to support the music’s enhanced vision, helping to further hurl the act from its self-plugged brainlessness, and in a sense continues where Agent Steel’s (slightly more) abstract, sci-fi thinking left off...kinda.

In all regards, Universe is a face-lift, but it’s one where its success relies on the opinions of those pacing the waiting room. Those experienced with both of the band’s slabs either seem to celebrate it as a superior-for-them, tech-thrash victory or hang heads low in the absence of the debut’s cactus skin and yellow teeth. I like ‘em both for different reasons, none of which include their breathtaking album covers or this lp’s flat lined vocal track.