Dead to Fall

“The Phoenix Throne” (Victory)

Sounds like: Caliban, Heaven Shall Burn, Scars of Tomorrow

REVIEW: 2.5 / 5

In short: Dead to Fall completely abandons its lo-fi pseudo-Swedish death approach and taking shot at – gasp – real metal. Breakdowns included.

When Dead to Fall hit the road to promote “Everything I Touch Falls to Pieces” it didn’t leave a single V. F. W. hall before the dance floor was bloodsoaked, littered with scattered teeth, broken bones, fallen plugs and lesser mesh-shorts-clad hardcore kids.

Fast forward to “The Phoenix Throne,” the band’s third full-length, and the story has more or less – like the band’s lineup – completely changed. The album is basically everything the band’s sophomore effort “Villainy and Virtue” was meant to be – a bullet straight out of the over-crowded metal-core genre and straight into the apex of the long-haired, style-deficient metal realm. It’s similar to the evolution of labelmates A Perfect Murder, but instead of Canadians trying to sound American, think Americans trying to sound Scandinavian – “trying” being the operative word.

The most unfortunate victim in this transition is John Hunt’s undeniably gut-checking growl. “Phoenix” sees him compromise for a more generic mid-range growl that couldn’t solicit a single windmill unless he was holding the audience at gunpoint, and even then it’s suspect.

In the end, “The Phoenix Throne” is nothing but a bunch of solid, but watered-down, metal tunes for the Hot Topic crowd and dudes with girlfriends into My Chemical Romance.

– Dante Sacomani