Artist: Good Day To Die (GD2D)
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2010
Length: 43:29
Rating: 3.5/5
Good Day To Die, who’ve recently shortened their name to GD2D, are Croatian doom stoner rockers who kicked up quite a bit of dust with their debut studio album “Hazing Through Shadows” (2008). Audiences and media alike welcomed the debut with plenty of approval and praise.
The Korčula-Zagreb crew sticks dutifully to some of the levers that established the quartet’s quality on that debut. For the new album they kept up their fruitful collaboration with respected American producer Billy Anderson. The renowned studio wizard has shaped the sound of albums by Sick Of It All, Eyehategod, Melvins, Neurosis and Fantomas over his career, and he handled the final mastering of GD2D’s new album “Total Drive”.
GD2D keep a proper garage sound on the new record. The snare has a rolling depth, the cymbals rattle, an additional instrument deepens the dynamics of the sonic picture, and the riffs roar with a creaky, elemental sound vocabulary that defines the hypnotic, stoned effect of this kind of music.
Still, the feeling is that GD2D have veered a bit away from the riff-heavier songs of the debut and added more stoner rock feel, as well as psychedelia (Lenga, the “The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn”-era Floyd-style vocal melody in Silver Mad Birds, not to mention the opener). With a slightly “softened” sound, their innate blues streak shines a touch brighter now too (Newborn).
It would be a mistake to assume GD2D can’t find their way within such a narrowly defined genre range. Quite the opposite. The guys have stretched those boundaries and offer a seriously bold mix of lead motifs and a varied approach to the songs themselves. There’s no escaping the feeling of spontaneity as the band sways through the stoned, almost oriental tangle of structures in Serpent Queen. At moments, simple, elemental riffs, backed by a minimalist rhythm template and dazed clean vocals (or ones run through a “distortion” effect), conjure up parallels with Queens Of The Stone Age (The Servants), while at other points, when the band manages to attack the ears harder with a pronounced, roaring riff-driven destructiveness, the music makes no secret of its basic kinship with Black Sabbath riffs (the intro to The Creature running on the rhythm of War Pigs, and the song Who?). Often this double approach is even boldly fused together, as Book Lie Face shows. The album opener is naturally devoted to adrenaline rush, delivered through a bold combination of arabesque melody, QOTSA-style elemental riff and rhythm, and the screaming makeup of a guttural vocal delivery. You could call this combination a winning, unmistakably GD2D game of musical expression.
Despite the influences mentioned, GD2D are the kind of band that can step outside the burden of genre frameworks and offer a winning combination in their arrangements, creating a musical reach with a recognizability all its own. “Total Drive” is a different album from the debut, and with it GD2D deepen their special expressive musical charisma, keeping them in the league of those new bands that manage to deliver interesting, fresh records with a sense of inspired musical interpretation. As such, the band has no need to hide behind the cosmetic polish of already proven ways of delivering music, the kind that would appeal to unimaginatively copying what’s already been invented. Instead, GD2D are the kind of band whose carefree, free-spirited direction comes across as exciting and insightful.
Alongside this bold step up from the debut, where the band (a band preaching in English, no less!) wasn’t afraid to challenge new reaches of its own musical evolution as it marches forward, credit also goes to Dallas, the label backing a young, committed band that aims squarely at the real “underground” scene, which will never make them superstars. Just the sense of relief in creating musical purity and artistic honesty toward themselves, which they unshakably believe in.
Lineup
Ivan Trampetić – vocals
Dalibor Farčić – guitar
Marjan Grgić – bass
Rene Kutičić – drums
Production
Marko Josipović & GD2D
Tracklist
1. The Mouse
2. Newborn
3. Lay Back And Relax
4. Lenga
5. The Creature
6. Silver Mad Birds
7. Who?
8. Serpent Queen
9. Book Lie Face
10 The Servants
