Review Summary: Solid gym metal from Germany
Though Davidian have been around for quite some time now, only in recent years have they managed to work up their name and get more thoroughly noticed. With their third album,
Our Fear Is Their Force, these German metallers clearly aim to be heard outside of Germany, too. Davidian’s third outing sees the band push their brand of chaotic metal to greater heights and with renown producer Tue Madsen at the helm this time around, the band have indeed managed to create their best work yet.
What’s great about this record is that it’s distinctly not genre bounded and many different sounds come together on
Our Fear Is Their Force. You can hear the mechanical grooves of Fear Factory, thrash trems, apocalyptic melodies, clever breakdowns and more. Davidian have taken the thrash blueprint, added core influences to it, and built on it a sound that is familiar, yet entirely their own. Add to that Tobi Brausch’s vicious vocal performance, as he truly screams at the top of his lungs (like Davidian lead you to believe on "Behind An Angelic Smile"), and you get a well-working metal machine. Still, the record is not without its flaws. For one, although the band’s sound itself is interesting enough, it’s a constant beatdown with these guys and it does tire out the listener sooner or later, seeing as how the formula never changes. Secondly, the guitar tone is rather unorthodox and while the listener will get accustomed to it quickly enough, it's still weirdly flat when you put the disc on for the first time. It’s not bad per se and it is in correlation with the music’s destructive edge, but it could have been meatier, so to say.
When all is said and done, though,
Our Fear Is Their Force is a valiant effort by these German thrash/core/clusterfuck metallers; just the few flaws it has bring the rating down a notch. It’s a solid album to put on when you wish to listen to some voracious shit or when you’re going to the gym, but its merciless nature and tendency to not deviate from its well-trodden path mean it's great in small bursts only. Still, we all could do with some in-your-face metal every once in a while and for that,
Our Fear Is Their Force is a perfectly fitting record.
