Deadlock
Earth.Revolt
LifeForce Records

The genre of metal has turned into a striated and confusing mish mash of styles, haircuts and attitudes. Whereas when the world of hard rock in the 70s gave way to the dual paths of the preening glam rockers or the speed metal badasses, nowadays the lines are starting to criss cross like a map of the London Underground. In that case, we shouldn’t be surprised by a group of five pierced, tattooed young men from Germany who are vegan, straight edge and list as their job descriptions on their website as “lung abuser” and “drumming thunder” right along side their sanguine day jobs of “call center agent” and “apprenticeship for wellness”.

What does come as a surprise after reading their bio is that Deadlock are still sticking to the doom and gloom aesthetic forged by predecessors. The entire album is a suite of songs about “the final and merciless battle of the Earth and its creatures against the exploitation of mankind” and most songs feature lyrics like “into the sky/into the blood drenched skies” and “beneath the burning skies/mankind’s drowning”. Of course one has to inspect the lyric sheet to decipher the growling scream of lead singer, Johannes Prem, but there are moments of vocal coherence thanks to the addition (on this album at least) of singer and keyboardist Sabine Weniger. Her dulcet tones add a gracious light to the dark proceedings.

It is those moments of melodiousness that are the most attractive aspects of this record. By the time you think you can’t take anymore punishing guitars and unnecessary cymbal crashes, the band will throw in a series of long sustained bass notes that make you feel like you are midair and scrambling for the edge. Weniger’s keyboards also give the proceedings a beautiful, goth-like timbre that stands in stark opposition to the agony portrayed everywhere else. Yet, what this band and most others of their ilk can’t seem to figure out is that restraint is a good thing. By the 6th song of this disc, I was so exhausted with listening to double kick drums and distorted riffs that I had to stop the disc and catch my breath. I don’t think that the music on here would have lost its impact had they shaved a few minutes off of each song.