Album Details

• Artist: Dead By April
• Album: Dead By April
• Label: Universal Music
• Year of Release: 2009
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: sinist3r-punk on 2011-07-30

Dead By April has burst out of the musical womb kicking and screaming in their first release, which is technically a remastered demo. Normally, you don't see a band do this well into their career when the only thing that gets them off anymore is the sweet smell of money. But DBA doesn't fall into this demographic for 2 reasons: They've only been around since 2007, and demo tracks aren't supposed to kick this much ass.

With a band like this, I would be quick to call them another melodic metal band because let's face it, most of it pretty much sounds the same with today's recording and editing technology. But anyone familiar with Dead By April knows you have to take the whole "melodic metal" marking with a grain of salt. DBA is yet another case of a band that deserves its own sub-genre. I would call this new genre "Melodic Metal Light with a twist of Lime", because every aspect of Dead By April is a juicy contradiction to their metal counterparts.

Right from the get-go, it's fairly easy to tell where Dead By April's influences are drawn from. In Flames is represented strongly here, with "Stronger" sounding like a cut straight from one of their superior albums. I'm not completely surprised, after all, both bands hail from Sweden, and that's a fairly small country right? But to dwell on this one song would be missing the glorious portrait painted right in front of us. Dead By April gets so many things right, you quickly forget that any other band exists while relaxing to this album, and that's what sets it apart from every other melodic metal band. I don't want to relax when I listen to Killswitch Engage or Atreyu; I want to break shit and go terrorize some old people. But DBA's approach is to masterfully tread the line between scary screamy metal and riffs as light as a cloud.

I've never had so much fun listening to an album, because no band has understood the concept of making something as popular and easy to rip off as metal music, and turning it on its head to take it places nobody thought would work. If every band took the time that DBA has taken to craft their demos to near perfection, maybe the music industry wouldn't be sinking under the weight of bloated labels and countless copycats.

Dead By April may not be Beethoven, hell; they've only released one album. But that one album has gotten me excited about music again. It gave me such a jolt of enthusiasm and intrigue; I can't start my day until I've heard at least 1 song from them. That's what is lacking in music today. Every band just sets their sights on being slightly better than their predecessor while trying to steal as much as possible without getting caught. If you have a genuine interest in getting into metal, but you're scared off by towering mountain of St. Unoriginal, I suggest you give this a try. And be sure to drop me a thank you once you achieve inner peace with Dead By April.

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