Review Summary: All hope is lost.
Black metal is such a beautiful genre of music. Weird to say that because the music is generally evil as balls, but when you think about the landscape of the genre, there's SO MANY variations on how to execute it. Canadian band Daccar-Tchuvz' Cave (WHAT A NAME) have brought forth their debut full-length,
Cold Disobedience, and it is one hell of a miserable ride.
Now I don't mean miserable in a bad way at all. This album is one of the best, most authentic modern black metal albums I've heard to date and it encompasses the early USBM sound to perfection, even if they are actually from Canada. Bands like Leviathan and Xasthur were known in the early days of the American black metal scene for their blatantly depressing, suicidal and extremely raw sound. Daccar-Tchuvz' Cave go back in time to perfectly embody everything that made that sound so special in the first place.
Freezing cold buzzsaw riffs and tortured screams of agony mixed with bits of dreamy atmospheric ambient bits are the norm here, putting you in an almost coma like state. These traits are what put American black metal on the map. While the Scandinavians were screaming about Satan, American black metal projects were more focused on depression, suicide and the mental struggles of life in general. Well, whatever was in the water in the US must've made it's way to Canada and right to these guys' doorstep.
The album art for
Cold Disobedience is a very good indicator of what you're getting here. This album will make you want to wander out into the cold forest by yourself, maybe never to return again. Daccar-Tchuvz' Cave is a band that represents everything right with modern black metal. No flashy production, no glitz and no glamor.
Cold Disobedience is not a happy album, and these guys have no problem letting you know it.
