Artist: It Dies Today
Label: Trustkill Records
Release: 2006
Well, this is what we were afraid of, and it happened. “The Caitiff Choir” (2004) got its share of praise and encouragement, and it didn’t hide the potential of the young guys who formed this band at an average age of a good 16. Today they average 22, and the album sounds like they’re not 22, not even 16, but all of “this many years” old. Unbelievable. After the opening bars, the first thing I did was check the new album’s lineup. I was convinced It Dies Today had brought in at least a new vocalist for “Sirens”. Nope. The lineup is exactly the same as on “The Caitiff Choir”, yet the record is totally different. That’s a kind of art in itself.
They’ve “unburdened” their sound of complexity, stripped away that last bit of life from the heavy-handed production of the debut, and loaded it up with tons of melodies, mostly penned by vocalist Nick. He’s barely recognizable on the new record. In the choruses he retreats into totally clean melodic singing, of the slightly nasal sort you get from bands like Bullet For My Valentine, Senses Fail or Atreyu, and what’s left of his convincingly brutal screaming from the debut is barely worth mentioning. Did his vocal cords go through a failed surgery or something? Or has Brooks simply lost his mojo, when he’s barely stumbled into his twenties? Brrrrr. Just two years after the debut, the vocals on the new record sound totally burnt out, faded, completely without the charisma we got on the ambitious debut. The most he can muster is a raspy, melodic wheeze, far, far away from the extremity that adorned his screaming, which on the debut even reached an intensity close to a death growl. The vocals on “Sirens” belong nowhere but in a third-rate punk band. A fiasco, given the demands and expectations for It Dies Today, which were justified by the excellence of “The Caitiff Choir”.
“Total commercialization is my name” is something It Dies Today could say about themselves with “Sirens”. So what we’re witnessing now is the injection of emo-core elements (read: goodbye screams, welcome whiny “clean” pathos), and “Sirens” could be labeled a metal pop album. The riffs are of course still built in a thoroughly metal way, but they can’t offer much more than an over-arty, sterile, soulless embrace around a vocal weeping in the center. In fact, the vocals even smother them. The sharp breakaways through rhythm changes and riff attacks that were so thrilling on “The Caitiff Choir” survive only in traces (e.g. On The Road (To Redemption, Reignite The Fires), and they’re barely worth mentioning. In the production, the guitar riffs have lost that thick, ominous sound that radiated so intensely on the debut.
The seeds of this softening of the musical direction can actually be found on “The Caitiff Choir” already. The flirtation with epic melodicism is clearly there, but it doesn’t kill the brutal extremes of the “core” bark and stays subordinate to it throughout. Sure, that Depeche Mode cover might have put the fear of God in you when you heard it on the reissued version of “The Caitiff Choir”, but the rest of the material was an absolute standout, and Enjoy Teh Silence came across as a moment of pure fun and release for the band in the studio. By the way, on “Sirens”, that cover could fit into the tracklist just fine in It Dies Today’s treatment. It Dies Today are a young band that has shown, with “Sirens”, all the flaws of foolish tactics. They’ve lost and sacrificed their recognizable sound and the clear focus of the debut, and churned out soap, with which they obviously wanted to win over the broader mass of listeners. Meanwhile, singer Nick Brooks has already left them. Is a breakup on the horizon? Entirely possible, since these guys are practically still kids. But it’s interesting on the flip side, because they’re undoubtedly excellent musicians we expect more from, and they always have the potential to repeat the quality of the debut and build on it. There are plenty of options open to It Dies Today. For now they’re drowning in uncreative mediocrity, and our only comfort is a modest (for now) tangible straw telling us we’re staying loyal to “The Caitiff Choir”.
Lineup
Nicholas Brooks – vocals
Christopher Cappelli – guitar
Mike Hatalak – guitar
Steve Lemke – bass
Nick Mirusso – drums
Production
Giggarth, Ben Kaplan, Mike Hatalak & Nick Brooks
Tracklist
1. Constant Reminder
2. Port in Any Storm
3. Bacchanal Affair
4. Sacred Heart (Sacre Coeur)
5. Sixth of June
6. Reignite the Fires
7. Black Bile, White Lies
8. Sirens
9. Through Leaves, Over Bridges
10. On the Road (To Damnation)
11. Turn Loose the Doves
Album length: 38.49
