Band : But We Try It
Album title : Dead Lights
Label : Massacre
Distributor : Suburban
Release date : 28/01/2011
Release : CD

This Wuppertal (a fairly large town situated less than 40 km N by NE from Köln) based German quintet (composed of lead singer Jörn Preidt, guitarists Tim Marxcors & Domink Ballreich, bassist Stefan Trautmann, and drummer Mark Brückmann) was founded in early 2008, did their debut gig in December of the same year, and have since been enabled to gain a nice reputation in the region by playing supports to such influential bands as The Ghost Inside, Suffocate, Cryptopsy, First Blood, Valient Thorr, Final Prayer, A Traitor Like Judas, Zero Mentality, and many more...aided in this, for sure, thanks to the success of their self-titled 6-track demo which they recorded and mixed between October 2008 and January 2009 at their own Madmax Studio), and which was well received by German press.

For the recording of their debut album in January 2010, the band allied with renowned producer Waldemar Sorychta (ex-Grip Inc., now Enemy Of The Sun guitarist...whom in the past helped the likes of Sodom, Tiamat, Lacuna Coil and Moonspell achieve internationally appreciated albums) at the Hagen based Woodhouse Studios (based a mere 25 km in NE direction from the boys' hometown), after which the material was mixed & mastered by Siggi Bemm (at the same studio), known from his work with Caliban, Lacuna Coil, and Samael to name but a few. Evidently, the high quality material couldn't help but attract the attention of a fair amount of German labels, and I gather the band waited long enough to sift through the offers, accepting the best deal in late November of late!

Now if, from the above, you've gathered that the band must be into the Brutal Metal kind of musical arts, you would indeed have guessed correct! Massacre puts the band's style down as “Thrash-Core”, but I would argue that this label only partly covers the offering. You see, there's definitely some Thrash flavourings to the band's music, but really their sound is based in a Swedish-style Melodic Death Metal with loads of lead guitar play. In fact, there's even quite a bit of double (frequently also with Progressive runs) lead play, and the overall harshness of the music is at those moments secured by the vocal stylings of the singers. Yes, I daresay singer in the plural, because where one person might perform both medium-high Blackened shrieks and low pitched growls within a same song, he would have to be a very weird kind of schizophrenic to be able to perform both styles in overlapping mode. Besides, I guess a third person in the band does the occasional cleaner vocals, since during “The Great Disaster” all three vocal stylings overlap at a certain moment. Of course the band also uses the stereotypical breakdowns, occasional Mosh parts, and tempo changes (with mellow passages recurring as well) which are identifiable with the Melodic Death Metal scene, but they definitely do so to their overall advantage. Hum...as far as the “Core” part is concerned...I have no idea where the label got that, and don't care to guess either!

An early reviewer (at (www.) cosmosgaming.com) was compelled to mention that he felt that (and I quote) “...by the time that Dead Lights has come to an end it feels as though they...” (the band) “...have begun to rely too much on a pattern,” and goes on to mention that the band doés try to switch things up by making the last two tracks part of a larger arrangement, but ends that same sentence by by stating “...but by this time some repetition has set in and the music is a little harder to distinguish.”! I wonder what that reviewer means by that latter sentence...I also wonder why websites (and indeed magazines as well) have albums reviewed by people who're not really into what's being offered! Personally, and I hope at least a fair deal of those who read this, I cannot help by being swept away by the great brutal/ melodic balance in both vocals and music, an the swirling melodies in the guitars! In fact, I guess I could stand listening to each song five times in a row, and manage to not even get bored, because there's enough in each song to keep one's analytic mind goin' for a while. In fact, if you're into Metal with alternating brutal and mellow moments, are into music which has some complexity underneath the obvious melody, and don't mind a mixing of the more extreme styles of singing, then I warmly suggest you give the two full-length tracks (and two samples) posted at (www.) myspace.com/butwetryit a decent listening session! Meanwhile, ehrr...N° 2 in the 2011 year-list, I guess!

98/100

Tony.