Dead Season ramp things up yet again
By SAM PFEIFLE | May 21, 2008
| Released by Dead Season | with 6gig + Cambiata + Twisted Roots + Covered in Bees + The Killing Moon + Radiation Year + Sparks the Rescue | at the Colisee, in Lewiston | May 24 |
It would be nice if everything were as great as it seems for Dead Season. The best-selling and best-drawing band in Maine released this week When Everything’s Lost..., their second full-length disc — with their last, Rise, still occupying the top-selling slot on Bull Moose’s local charts — and have everything in the world to celebrate. Yet the birth of their album can do nothing but remind you of the ironies of modern life. Tracks like “Mother,” “Hero,” and “The End” are dedicated to family members recently passed and the album as a whole is as dark as the album art, full of a little girl with dirty fingernails caressing a skull.So delicate and so menacing.
They carry it through their music, songs that are by far the band’s most intricate and best crafted, alternatingly melodically inviting and sonically punishing. Frontman Ian Truman’s vocals have more range and nuance than ever, carrying balladic verses and a primal-screamed chorus from measure to measure. Brother Matt Truman matches that range with his guitar, ripping off machine-gun, staccato runs and distorted solos with equal aplomb. Backed by a gelling rhythm section of drummer Andy Hackett and bassist Steve Church, the result is a collection of 11 songs (there’s no track five, but there is a track 50, so it can be hard to count) that are accessibly heavy, if largely depressing.
There’s a lot to digest in these tracks. “Break the Silence” opens with a spacey take on a Latin beat and hyper-quick vocals, then moves into a call-and-response organization, with Church riding the high hat and an echoing guitar like a ’Til Tuesday synthesizer. “You Keep Me Alive” is full of a metallic vibe paired with a pop-infused vocal melody, like Depeche Mode’s “People Are People” met Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” in a mosh pit. “Revelation 6” opens menacing and then moves to double time, with a languid guitar solo as a counterpoint and a cool sustained all-stop with 30 seconds left. It feels like an eternity of silence after the mania that preceded it.
But it’s impossible to ignore the words of “Mother,” which might remind you of “Bohemian Rhapsody” for half a measure, but is crushing in its sentiment. The Truman brothers combine for the song’s heart, the one calling out, “Mother,” the second filling in with, “hold me,” then both combining for “I will write my story for you.” Finally, Ian delivers a truly tortured, “I want you back, mama/We can’t save you.”
It’s a helplessness anyone can relate to and it’s just one example of the naked emotion that infuses this disc. Like a number of heavy bands, Dead Season’s heart is as soft as their music is hard. What do you do when everything’s lost? Buckle down and make a great album.
On the Web
Dead Season: www.deadseasonmusic.com
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