With ominous rumbling, A DREADFUL VISION announces their first CD, which wants to be an album but only includes seven tracks, including an intro. So it's more of a long EP or, as it used to be called, a mini-album.
It rumbles ominously, then it sounds like a helicopter is flying right past your head, and then the blasting begins.
A DREADFUL VISION claims to play Deathcore, which is the type of music that finds its home between Hardcore, Death Metal, and Metalcore. The band is serious about it, as you can hear from the first song that exerts considerable pressure and fits well into the genre with a growling singer and screeching background vocals.
With Deathcore, it's a bit of a thing; either you love the noise or you hate it.
Bands that belong to this genre are usually technically skilled, and this band from Erfurt, which has named this record “A Slave of the Modern Age,” is no exception. The guitar playing is pleasing, the vocals are a matter of taste but can be considered okay, yet something is missing. While listening, it becomes apparent that the bass is hardly audible; you have to listen closely because the guitar is not played in the highest tones, but it is indeed the bass. Hardly audible, perhaps even absent. In contrast, the drums sometimes sound like the percussion of a marching band on speed, but otherwise do a decent job.
One could live with these weaknesses and say that the band has only existed since 2008 and has fulfilled a small dream with their first album (let's call this record an album). Many bands have done that before, and even though I'm not an expert in Deathcore, I find the whole story rather boring after multiple listens. Whether it's because the band plays their songs with too little variation (which admittedly only becomes apparent after several listens) or because of the missing bass and the peculiar drums, I can't say for sure. Perhaps it's also because too many bands in this genre create a sound that is too similar.
However, every band starts small, and thus the five members from Erfurt
of A DREADFUL VISION should be kept in mind. Good things take time.
