Dirge – Dirge
Release Date: 10th March 2023
Label: Immersive Sounds
Bandcamp
Genre: Doom, Post Metal, Sludge.
FFO: Amenra, Cult of Luna, Pull Down The Sun, Sleep.
Review By: John Newlands
Dirge is the self-titled sophomore album from the Indian post metal band, Dirge, not to be confused with the now defunct French post metal band of the same name. I was actually familiar with the band as I stumbled across the band and their first album AH Puch (2018) while searching for the aforementioned French bands on Spotify.
For me, Ah Puch was great and some good fun, it pulled from some different styles of metal (doom, thrash, sludge & stoner) but ultimately left me feeling that the band hadn’t yet found its own identity.
New album, Dirge is a lot more uniform in style, sitting more firmly in the doom, post-metal & sludge categories. It’s a lot more concise and focused offering that benefits greatly from this cohesion.
The opening guitar riff and overall guitar sound of the first track, Condemned, immediately brought Amenra to mind. I noticed this a few times again through the full run of the album, there is clearly an influence and a nod to the riffs and guitar sound of the Flemish giants being present, but not overused. Often, when doing I feel they are doing “the Amenra thing” they surprise me and take the track in a different direction, or pull on a different sound that distracts from this association.
Dirge consists of four tracks, Condemned, Malignant, Grief and Hollow of which the band says “are inspired from real life experiences of anger, guilt, sorrow, and fear” so, this is some cheery stuff! Songs clock in from 9 mins to just shy of 13 minutes. This isn’t one where you jump in for a quick listen of one or two tracks, when you are in, you go all in. I would say that the album is best consumed in one sitting to take in the dynamics of each track and appreciate the flow of the album.
Dirge doesn’t become boring at any point, the band always manages to not over repeat phrases and to do something new to keep the listener interested. Production is much improved from the last album, I like the notable use of what I’m sure is fuzz (not distortion or overdrive) on the guitar, giving a more stoner/doom feel to the riffs and offers a different texture than you would expect in this genre. That said, sometimes I felt that parts of the tracks could do with some different “flavours” or textures. In my opinion, I think use of some quirky modulation effects or even adding some synth would elevate Dirge to another level and make them stand out a bit more.
All in all, this is a solid post-metal release and thoroughly enjoyable. It checks all the required boxes, but doesn’t re-invent the wheel. I really hope that by the next release Dirge may have shaken off more of the obvious influences and really found their own sound, I believe they have more to give, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for anything new in the future.
(3.5 / 5)
