You can't judge a book by it's cover, and the same goes for albums. However, beholding the twisted and evil artwork, I was certainly prepared for quite a sonic onslaught, which is exactly what I got. The tempo of the work may swing back and forth between rabid and doomy, but the album is very, very consistent in how dark and bloodcurdlingly crushing the it is, and it does an immensely good job of sonically ripping ones limbs out of their sockets, in the best possible way. As everyone knows, there is more than one way to be misanthropic, and Dragged into Sunlight certainly explore a few. On top of the enraged heaviness, there is often more subtle darkness, with sections which are heavily influenced by black-metal and doom-metal. The sum of all the styles incorporated reminds me somewhat of the "bestial black-metal" style of bands like Blasphemy, but I'd certainly not label DIS as such - while the raw-production, and often the evil-sounding, slightly muffled vocals, remind me a bit of the style, it is, at the same time, plain to see that the band doesn't quite fit into that category, which is, essentially, a good thing - certainly indicative of a pleasing uniqueness, or, at very least, definitely showing that I don't know enough about death-doom.
I don't exaggerate much when I say that Hatred for Mankind is one of the most dark and evil albums I've heard in a long time; The black-metal elements, evil tremolos and the like, add a layer of dark-shadow upon the low-fi, implosive, brooding riffing, which is dark-enough by itself, a looming wall of low-tone which sounds positively apocalyptic, and when the vocals become a screech instead of a growl, and the threatening spoken-word samples kick-in from time to time, the music transcends dark and enters the realm of evil, which is, I expect, exactly what the band aimed at. If so, this is a great example of a band making vision into reality. Production-wise, there is one touch I particularly like - the prominence of the drums. In a lot of fairly raw metal of this kind, it's quite normal for the drums to sound a bit muffled and blunt. Not so, in this album, where on top of being skilled, the drums are quite high in the mix, easily audible, often to the point of being in focus instead of trapped under other instruments, and bringing an interesting edge to the music, more piercing and, indeed, evil-sounding for it, the shrieking high-hat and cymbals something which many low-fi bands miss out upon.
I'm definitely going to include Dragged into Sunlight into my regular listening, and I can safely say that the band are on of the bands I'll be keeping an eye out for, both gigs and new releases. If you want an album unrelentingly dark and lethal, this is the album for you.
Definitely a 7/10, and probably an album which will get even better with time.
Links:
Dragged into Sunlight Official Site
Dragged into Sunlight on Myspace
Dragged into Sunlight on Facebook
Dragged into Sunlight on Metal Archives
