Review Summary: A neat concept that's largely average, but has a few excellent moments sprinkled in there to make it somewhat noteworthy.
Looking at the absolute state of mainstream creative industries these days,
DC Dark Nights: Death Metal stands out as a pretty unique project that conjoins two mediums together with equal importance: music and comic books. The comic book itself is a sequel to Scott Snyder’s 2017 mini-series
Dark Nights: Metal, a mini-series of comics that also had an accompanying compilation soundtrack to it, filled with returning names for the sequel LP (Maria Brink and Chino Moreno, as well as being produced by Tyler Bates). Bar going back to old Alan Moore graphic novels or Garth-Ennis-written Punisher comics from time to time; I haven’t read a comic book for over ten years, so in regards to the quality of the comic book itself, I cannot say. However, I do appreciate its idiosyncrasies on paper and the effort that must have gone into making this idea a reality. It’s clear, judging from the line-up on
DC Dark Nights: Death Metal, that this sequel is meant to be bigger and better than before, bolstering a soundtrack that has a formidable array of eclectic and respectable names in the industry today.
In a lot of ways this is very similar to HEALTH’s
DISCO4 :: Part I compilation album, released last year, in which it throws a load of artists and musicians into a boiling pot and attempts to make a cohesive blend out of the collective talent pool. Instead of HEALTH being the narrator of the LP, Tyler Bates (co-writer and producer on Marilyn Manson’s first makeover in 2015, as well as soundtrack credits to big-budget TV shows and films as long as my arm) attempts to forge a seamless tale from this very diverse cast. Unfortunately for Bates, unlike
DISCO4 :: Part I,
DC Dark Nights: Death Metal doesn’t flow quite as fluidly, nor does the songwriting have the same pedigree of brilliance. This is a compilation album made up of artists on the Loma Vista label and as such, there is a boat load of great names involved with it, but when it comes to the crunch, the quality lands on being a bit of a mixed bag. Mastodon’s “Forged By Neron” sounds incredibly dull – an off-kilter track that resides more in B-side-writing territories than the ‘Don we all know and love. The same goes for the HEALTH/Chino Moreno collaboration. Arguably my most anticipated track on here; it read like a gift from the Gods. In reality, musically, it sounds like NIN-lite, sitting snuggly behind generic industrial aesthetics and some rather off vocal takes from Chino himself. The song opens up promisingly enough, with a one-two punch of rolling drum kicks, chugging guitars, and this unsettling synth noise that descends down the back of it, but the problems begin to set in when nothing comes after that initial stunner. There are no stand out instrumental moments to be had and neither vocalist reaches out to take hold of the reigns in a satisfying way.
To make matters worse, not all of the tracklisting here offers up original tracks for the soundtrack. Grey Daze’s “Anything, Anything” comes from their 1997 album
…No Sun Today, while Rise Against’s “Broken Dreams, Inc” comes hot off of their new album,
Nowhere Generation. This in itself is harmless enough, but the tracks themselves don’t exactly gel all that well with the ones made specifically for this album, adding needless baggage that could have easily been excluded. Still, there’s only one song on here that’s outright awful, and that goes to “Bad Luck” by Denzel Curry and PlayThatBoiZay. The vintage post-punk vibes mixed with these deranged, avant-garde vocal performances and terrible lyrics do absolutely nothing for the album other than completely derail the momentum. And the weird thing is, “Bad Luck” actually sits better with the latter half of the record than most – offering more of this raw 70s post-punk-meets-experimental style, the likes of which Idles and Stone Cold Earth execute, albeit far more favourably than Denzel Curry and PlayThatBoiZay, later on in the LP.
Yet, for all of
DC Dark Nights: Death Metal’s flaws, it still manages to avert being a complete disaster – far from it, actually. There are some real highlights to be found throughout the album. To the surprise of no one, Manchester Orchestra creates the best song for the LP; a barnstorming epic filled with melancholic swells, sweeping guitar passages, and Andy Hull’s incredibly poignant vocal takes that build up the beast to its euphoric conclusion. Similarly, Chelsea Wolfe creeps up behind Manchester Orchestra with her amazing contribution to the album. “Diana” is a moody, intricately woven behemoth that brings back her syrupy industrial metal sensibilities, supported by Wolfe’s proclivity for anguish-fuelled vocal work. Other highlights come from Soccer Mommy’s benign indie-rock tune “Kissing in the Rain”, and Greg Puciato’s track “Now You’ve Really Done It.” The co-written Puciato/Bates beauty in particular sounds like Mr. Bungle, and comes as a warming surprise because Greg is clearly tapping into his early days as an artist where Mike Patton mentored him: a slinking, groove-centric rock tune greased in attitude and crushing fuzz.
Overall, when you consider the talent on this thing and who’s producing it,
DC Dark Nights: Death Metal comes as a bit of a disappointment and a missed opportunity. However, the highs on this album, though infrequent, will send you into the stratosphere. It’s Manchester Orchestra, Chelsea Wolfe, Greg Puciato, and Soccer Mommy that will ultimately have you coming back for more, and with that, you’re willing to take the bulk of this album’s middling numbers just to get to those excellent tracks. Tonally the album is patchy, to put it kindly, and there’s a lot of bloated fluff to get through on this hour-long soundtrack, but rarely does the album fumble on its face to the point of being a burden to get through. Sure, a lot of the tracks here lack memorability, but as a whole, it’s a novel listen with some absolute gems packed within it.
