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 | Dead and DivineThe Fanciful2008 Rise 
 Review by: moneenerd See others by this writer Only registered users can post comments 
 
Published on April 4th 2008 I love writing a good review for an album that's deserving of praise, but I love trashing crappy albums and bands even more as the latter seems to receive more positive and commercial attention from the media and fans alike than the former. Now, the guys in Dead and Divine have played my town twice now, and are quickly becoming the latest craze amongst angst-ridden teenagers and scenesters, with the band's recent signing to Victory Records only adding to their momentum. To me, being handed their The Fanciful record was like tossing a lamb to a family of hungry wolves; I could not wait to (sadly) sit through the 40 or so minutes of over-dramatic hardcore tarnishing, tear it apart and expose it for the joke it truly is. However, Dead and Divine does a fairly decent job themselves on their MySpace alone, describing themselves as... Aggressive, Melodic, Intense, Hard, Emotional, Heavy, Driving, In Your Face, Fancy.Good God, where do I start here? Ten-plus years of "melodic metalcore" and the genre is still going ass-backwards and has only dumbed down since its inception by bands like Poison the Well (who has since left the genre far behind). The mere fact that a metalcore band would describe themselves as fancy is laughable, but to compare themselves to the likes of Morrissey, Blue Rodeo and Smashing Pumpkins is tantamount to sacrilege. They also go on to list a bunch of adjectives we've heard used before by the cliché "-core" bands that D&D allegedly is trying to "jump away" from. Seemingly, one does not have to look past the band's MySpace biography to catch the punchline. But enough with D&D's self-glamorizing and self-importance -- let's get down with the actual music contained on The Fanciful, which, in a vast sea of melodic and metallic hardcore bands that claim to be the heaviest thing going, is everything but. Apparently, The Fanciful is an "epic tale" of light and dark, good and evil, heaven and hell -- aspects of the universe that cannot exist without its complete opposite. Maybe I didn't care enough to delve into the lyrics further, but this theme is lost in its sloppy lyricism (though they mention the word "devil" a hell of a lot throughout the album), but is still quite evident in the actual music writing, as many trite metalcore groups like D&D tend to trendily tie together many styles of heavy music with their antagonists. It's all here on The Fanciful: heavy one-chord mosh parts coupled with melodic guitar solos, angry vocal roars backed by tender crooning, short bursts of technical and intricate rhythms followed up by slow and straightforward hardcore beats, douche-y tour haircuts and bad tattoos clothed in fashionable Rockett shreds. Obviously, D&D follow the same played out trends a million other MTV2 "punk" bands are. The difference is that D&D fit the cookie-cutter mold so perfectly it almost seems unreal (or fanciful!), and completely discredits the very write-up sampled above. The Fanciful shows no signs of jumping away from any cliché, but rather dives in headfirst and encompasses a scene that is a cliché itself. The Fanciful may be a new record by Dead and Divine, but the band is still using decade-old tricks to get noticed by young girls and boys who can't wait to waste their allowance on albums about teenage problems written by adult males, as well as attract the eyes of the commercial schmucks who propagated this trend in the first place (ahem...Victory!). However, their reputation as being self-absorbed, horny, 16-year-old boys stuck in 20-year-old mens' bodies will hopefully hinder their success than further it. One can only hope that this trend dies off to give way to the hard-working and innovative bands that still tour this great planet of ours in the name of honest and true punk rock. Please login or register to post comments. What are the benefits of having a Punknews.org account?
First of all, The Fanciful was released on Verona Records, in Canada and Rise Records in the US. I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul. the only interesting thing to come out of this rise/victory debate is the fact that cduniverse call it a sale when they take 40cents (or just over 3% of the price by my calculations) a sale? CHEEK! They played in North Bay a while back, my band opened for them. The drummer (ex drummer now I guess) was one of the coolest guys I've ever met. But the actual band was terrible. I had the chance to tell the guitarist aswell that most of their riffs are as generic as their hair cuts. so before you question Paul's editorial skills, maybe ask yourself why you would feel the need to come to the rescue of some ridiculous boy-band that most ppl over the age of 21 could give a fuck about, no matter what label they're on? sure, my bad that i mistook the albums major and more prominent distributer for it's actual label (though, i hardly see a difference in the two as D D banners and ads are sprawled across both Rise and Victory's websites as if they belonged to both), i was also told by a lot of people and read on websites that Victory almost owns Rise anyway, as they sell more Rise records on their site than Rise does themselves on their own, and the question of who owns what comes up from time to time in interviews with label execs and the like. as in... ugh. obviously i need to spell this out for you since none of you guys bothered to peep the links i posted. rise records is distributed by VICTORY RECORDS!!!! and a lot of the sites i visited to get info on the album that i couldnt get from just the disc say "Rise Records/Victory Records (USA)". When you purchase a Rise records record, Victory gets a big chunk out of it. So maybe saying that D D were signed by Victory was a bit of a stretch, but nevertheless, THE FANCIFUL is one of the top sellers on Victorys website. paul, paul, paul. you really thought the reviewer took the time to write such an extensive bashing, yet mistook victory! for rise? score is for paul's naivety. this album was a complete fucking disappointment. d&d always ripped off a lot of good bands from lyrics and rhythms to style but they took the best parts of those bands and put them together to make a pretty good band but now this is just garbage and their once high energy live show is hurting aswell (big reason, NO WILL!!!) i would have much rather seen these guys make a compilation album of some of their older songs (behold!, stickaround chief, curiosity, goodnight quiet city, san dimas, and bronze goddess) and made a good ep for their first US release. this is shit, theyre going downhill fast but odds are theyre gonna get huge now so whatever. *wear "Get your shit straight if ur gonna be knocking a band. Dead and Divine are on Rise Records not Victory. This album is kick ass and so does the band" I stopped reading at "melodic metalcore". here too, smart ass: http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7624412 PAUL: Suckmahdick. http://www.victoryrecords.com/item/12959/0/Dead_And_Divine_The_Fa nciful Get your shit straight if ur gonna be knocking a band. Dead and Divine are on Rise Records not Victory. This album is kick ass and so does the band wow, it's bands like this that make me glad im in my mid twenties and just starting to seriously pursue being in a band. haha it would make sense if it were. this album is shit. Is that goatse? |
