Review:

on 2010-02-28 Zarathustra Said:

If you read my review of the last BDM album, you were probably able to determine that I quite like them. Understandably I was quite excited about the release of a new album. The fact that John Kempainen was to be replaced with Ryan Knight wasn't too much of a concern, until I started listening to the album. Contrary to what I thought, Ryan's addition changed the sound of the guitars quite a bit. At first it was difficult to get used to this slightly different Black Dahlia, but after listening to the album a few times and finding the tracks that really stood out for me, I found I liked them just as much if not even more than before. The first track Black Valor starts out with your usual BDM style riff, Trevor and Shannon seem to get better all the time because the vocals and drumming in this song are fantastic, when the solo comes in recognise it as a Black Dahlia Murder solo but with a new flavour to it. This theme continues throughout the album, everything being BDM to a tee, but being different at the same time. The stand out tracks for me were; Black Valor, Denounced Disgraced (which has some great riffing and a solid solo, but it's real stand out is the amazingly brutal riffs after the solo), Death Panorama, That Which Erodes Most Tender and I Will Return (which has a nice outro solo performed by producer Jason Suecof.

Sound:
Well vocally this album is fantastic, continuing BDM's tradition of layering Trevor's high pitched and low pitched screams at the same time, creating this arguably demonic sound. When they're not doing that, he's changing between high pitched screams, deep growls and a sort of raspy hardcore scream.
The guitars sound good, clean and they're well played. The change in some of the solos and riffing is probably due to Ryan K writing different material than John did, but this is a good thing because as I stated in my review of Nocturnal, John was rehashing those solos and it was starting to piss us off.
The drums I have a slight issue with. Shannon is a good drummer, he's quick and quite tight at those speeds which is impressive. But some tracks have a really "live" feel to the drums, Black Valor for example, but others do not, like Death Panorama, I'm just going to assume that Shannon had to use triggers on Death Panorama because the tempo is so high, which is fine.
The production overall is very good and I'm impressed with the sound overall.

When I saw the album art I thought, "that's different, much more colourful than the past albums" If you think it's a sign that these guys are changing. It is, but don't worry it's for the better.
Rating: 9/10