Issue VI

Holy mother of heavy soundwaves is this a frustrating review. Dew-Scented is a band that can be described as pure unadulterated metal. My first touch with the band came with the previous record Impact, which kicks large amounts of moshpitting booty. On Issue VI the parts are in place and the violent parties should be imminent. Uwe Wernings drumming is pulverizing with great precision and technique, the guitars spit out monstrous riffs at an assembly line-speed and Leif Jensen uses his powerful albeit monotonous gruff to great effects. It seems like a perfect meltdown package to bust your head to but…my fist just isn’t getting up at the rate it should be. The mellow opening chords of Processing Life give about the only breathing part of the album before Wernings furious blast beat takes over and the 45 minutes of non-stop meat-grinding begins. Rituals Of Time and Bled Dry groove nicely and have some damn infectious choruses. Turn To Ash and Ruins Of Hope reveals the guitar duos heavy diet of Slayer, as the solos are pure King/Hanneman guitar-abuse in all of their note-filled tornado structures. It all seems stupendous but for some odd reason it all just isn’t sticking to me. Listen after listen after listen but very little has awoken in me that would want to play this album over and over again instead of say, Kreators Enemy Of God. I think the biggest factor here turning me off is the lack of variety, which pains me to say it, cause I can dig some pretty one-sided stuff as long as its killer and/or filled with hooks (I mean, lets face it, Reign In Blood isn’t really a textbook example in multiversatile songcraft, but it still rules all hell, right?). There are just so many bands out there playing this kind of harsh, ultra aggressive mixture of death and thrash today that Dew-Scented doesn’t deliver the complete goods to catch my ears on this one. The production is quite good, although at times the drums strike oddly tinning and weak, even though this isn’t the case throughout the whole disc. If you dig brutal metal with emphasis on the blasting overdrive feeling, moshability and grunting gang choruses without too much melody or complex structuring, Issue VI is definitely for you. Technically and playing-wise these guys are amazing. Hell, I certainly dig music with the aforementioned qualities from time to time, but this album just doesn’t do it for me. Pure metal nonetheless.