DESPISED ICON’S COMME SI, COMME SA “DAY OF MOURNING”
Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 3:00pm by Sammy O'Hagar
While Despised Icon didn’t show up early to the deathcore party, they did manage to show up right on time with 2005’s laudably solid The Healing Process. Squarely at the intersection of technical death metal and tough guy hardcore, the band provided a then-fresh perspective on both genres with remarkable precision. Fast forward to 2009: deathcore is (relatively) big business now, and has, in its short existence, become a polarizing and ultimately tired genre. Any kid that grew up listening to breakdown-fueled hardcore can throw on a Suffocation shirt, meet a few other dudes that spend 8-12 hours a day practicing guitar, find a drummer one can trigger out of existence, and – BOOM! – you’ve got an honest shot at being signed to Sumerian or Victory. And yet, The Healing Process retains its fresh sound. This is, perhaps, the greatest disappointment in terms of Despised Icon’s latest outing, Day of Mourning: while there are certainly salvageable bits, it veers close to sounding like tired, triggered deathcore overall. Trying to keep up with the times has ultimately made the band a victim of them, and in a genre as massively overpopulated and interchangeable as deathcore, it’s an unwise decision to sound like anyone else.
The good news about the album is that there are tons of great Meshuggah-meets-morse-code breakdowns and hardcore-informed slams. In fact, there’s nary a bad one on the whole thing. The opening of “All for Nothing” is reminiscent of Bury Your Dead before they started taking themselves seriously; the epic trod and ominous arpeggio of “Entre le Bien et le Mal” (which, if high school French still serves me well, is some sort of reference to zombies) has a meanness that would make Winds of Plague hang their oft-pierced heads in shame; and “MVP”’s mosh parts alternate between Coalesce techniess, rapid fire palm-muted picking, and a good, old fashioned slow motion car crash metalcore breakdown. Even the drums, while a little too sterilized (as this, sadly, is deathcore’s M.O.), still have interesting flourishes and stylistic signs of life to them. There’s plenty of fun to be had on Day of Mourning, and one doesn’t even have to feel guilty while having it: Despised Icon take the mosh arts seriously. While many of deathcore’s lesser acts focus on making skinny kids erupt into scene karate, DI focus on constructing aural violence to enjoy at home as well as in a live setting. Even “Sleepless“ – the semi-provocative closing track that features hints of doom and post-metal – still has teeth to it, proving that the band can feature notable dynamics but still stay on their feet.
Unfortunately, even despite the presence of “Sleepless,” Day of Mourning comes up short in terms of an album. While it’s silly to slam an album of good songs because it doesn’t feel like an album, this is not one of those cases: despite meaty riffs and toothsome breakdowns, something’s missing. Day of Mourning feels more like a string of good parts instead of a collection of good songs. Lack of songwriting chops has always been deathcore’s and metalcore’s Achilles Heel, and Despised Icon come dangerously close to becoming a 2010 Hot Topic discount bin resident at times. The album has the band sounding like a better-than-average deathcore outfit; however, for the guys that made an record as concise, sleek, and affecting as The Healing Process, this isn’t good enough. In a genre where bands have quickly become as disposable as tampons, we have to expect more of the ones that can do more. The Despised Icon of 2005 were solidly of the latter. The 2009 edition makes one not so sure.
(2 1/2 out of 5 horns)
-SO
Brutal
I totally agree with this…the healing process got me into the band…and I loved the ill of modern man…but this album just sounds like The Ills number two…that’s all….i’d give it a solid 2.5 as well….
still waiting new BTBAM and The red chord…so far i’d have to say my album of the year is ETID’s new junk
Agreed. That album is FUCKING GOOD.
Though…not “metal” per se..
true true its a good album but not as good as ill of the modern man
The Ills of Modern Man > The Healing Process > Day of Mourning > whatever that first album was with the terrible vocals
I’m pretty sure that title has something to do with armageddon and not zombies at all..
And the ills of modern man is fucking horrible. The only good record this band ever put out was The Healing process
I just full out disagree.
i love the new album. any haters out there have to remember, this is MONTREAL DEATHCORE LOL come on, give them some fucking credit. its their style. THIS ISNT TIRING HARDCORE DEATH METAL, its fuckin montreal deathcore god damnit, NOT EMMURE jesus christ.
they’re some fuckin nice guys that love brutal metal from fuckin MONTREAL, REPRESENT.
ive watched these guys grow as a band and im really really happy to see them blow up like this. they’ve got a sound, they’re making music, BLAH that is all
I’m pretty sure even at least one member of this band hates the garbage they’ve been producing. I’m really not sure what people like about the ills of modern man, its just martry ad with french accents and a huge departure from what initially caught my attention with this band. I don’t know if you’ve seen them on each of the tour cycles but being in a band that’s played with them nearly every time they’ve come through the united states I can safely assert that they’re definitely not as good as they were with The Healing process. In fact, the songs they still play from that record are way slower and not as well played as they used to be. I’m sorry that you’re new to death metal or whatever, but everything this band has released in the past four years is garbage.
You meant “they’re making BLAH music”
Despised Icon is the shit. All “metal” bands sound like other metal bands anymore. It is all just ripping off the last guy so the next guy can do it later. I love metal but it lost its soul a long time ago. This album is great insomuch as the last couple other albums were great too. Isn’t consitency commendable anymore?
“…bands have quickly become as disposable as tampons.”
That is a bonfide indictment. Too many “core” bands are doing the bare minimum in the creativity department. If any effort at all. You literally can take a cross section of the metalcore genre as a whole, and hit shuffle, and would be hard pressed to tell the difference between most bands. Start song with a breakdown…chug along… breakdown…solo\waste time tll next breakdown…breakdown…
its alright. Maybe itll grow on me but so far The Ills of Modern Man is the best one. But time will tell
FaceBook user. question if I live in Dominican Republic and I do metal what would be the name of the type of heavy metal that I play???
caribbeancore
LAWL
Dirtpoorcore
Damn. That shit was harsh…but funny.
It’s comme çi, comme ça
And this band fucking blows.
actually it’s comme ci comme ça, the ç comes only when placed before a, o and u if you want them to be pronounced s instead of k… Yeah I know, French is a bitch…
i have french courses every fucking day of the week, i’ve had them for 12 years, you think i’m not fucking pissed at my own language?
This is hands down my favorite metal site…but you guys should realllllyyyy stop reviewing albums. I know reviews are a matter of subjective opinion, but no one you have is any good at actually breaking down an album or a band’s sound for that matter. If you keep reviewing bring on some people that know a little bit about metal. Thanks!
Good review, fair enough. I rank this higher, myself, but I can understand where Sammy is coming from.
ZOMBIES LOL it means “between the good and the evil/wicked” — one of TWO french songs on the album.
I essentially would give Healing Process and Ills of Modern Man 5/5’s, and this one a 4.5/5…
i thought the vocals were very good, but how they present them in the course of a song was dissapointing compared to Ills
The healing process and consumed by your poison were the only good DI records. Ills sucked a fat dick.
Its decent but I’d still rather throw on the DI/BITGOTA split cd
BITGOTA ftw….
great split.
+1
i love the new album. i think its great. it sounds like despised icon.
its so funny seeing half of you guys say “IT SUCKS” or “ITS JUST LIKE ILLS” when soooo many people get disappointed when bands change their sound a bit.
LISTEN TO THE WHOLE ALBUM TWICE and you’ll appreciate it as much as i do.
kudos to despised icon, and if the boys of Despised Icon are reading this, KEEP’R'GOING TABARNAK
“i’m way more hardcore than all of you because I only like the album “Healing Process”
I feel the same way about Every Time I Die. BUT I STILL LISTEN TO THEM BECAUSE THEY EXIST AS A 5 PIECE BAND. do any of you know why they changed theit sound? you should. andy from etid just did an interview for metalsucks.
lmao, you’re all a bunch of over-analytical metal nerd FUCKS lmfao
Hahaha
I haven’t listened to this yet but I am bummed by this review. Ills of modern man was way good and I thought they were too talented and smart to make an album described like this. Guess I will find out
Don’t listen to anything negative on this site. I’m not gunna pretend to know what good and bad death metal is but you guys are giving DI as much shit as Brokencyde and all the other bands that really do suck. I know half of you probably judged this song by MVP and Day of Mourning too which is stupid. Listen to the whole CD before trashing this band.
“Entre le Bien et le Mal” (which, if high school French still serves me well, is some sort of reference to zombies)” are you kidding me it means between the good and the evil that being said TA’YEULE 514
thats an amazing song by the way
indeed.
I’m sorry but this album is amazing. The drumming is fucking superb. That is all.
+1 IT FUCKING RULES!
Ha ha exactly what word in that song title was supposed to mean zombies? Anyway, if you liked di before I can’t find a reason why you wouldn’t like this album. All of their previous albums have shared the same fucking sound, so saying that they were garbage after the healing process is just fucking stupid. Try to get Internet metal cred much? Ha ha they’re a deathcore band anyway what kind of props were you expecting to get? Regardless I can’t stand 99% of deathcore, but di makes up about 1/4 of that 1%. Great record.
All Shall Perish makes up for all of it!!!!!!!!!
DIDNT show up early? i thought these dudes were one of the first
I think its because Al Grossman left or was kicked out, not sure about that, and went to JFAC…they lost that part of their style…of course the band is going to sound different!!!!!!!!!
Just listened…and its meh at best!!!!!!! Not because I don’t like deathcore…but its just not that great IMHO!!!!!!!!!
Consumed By Your Poison is still and will always be my favorite DI album.
Healing Process was great.
The Ills of Modern Man was good too, but it pretty much showed everyone what the next album would be like.
I honestly can’t stand Day of Mourning because I KNOW(and so do you) what they’re capable of doing with their music.
it saddens me.
I have to agree there is just something missing. It’s not horrible at all, and is sonically crushing, but it’s so monochrome. I actually miss the pig squeals – with them it sounded more like eerie whistling then dorky overacting. A song like “Sleepless” show they can totally head out in their own direction when they want. It comes across as a record where they wanted to be more tr00 and kvlt, when pulling out an acoustic guitar might been the thing to blow open the doors on the whole genre. I still feel like they have yet to write their greatest album. I hope they have the chops, ideas and guts to do it someday…
Still looking forward to seeing them live next week, though. They smoke live.
I really like this, but it isnt quite as good as “The Ills of Modern Man”. It is really similar, but just not as memorable. I like the vocal production(no pig squeals) and overall warm tone of this record, but it doesnt bring anything new to the table. These dudes are my favorite death metal core band and they are killer live, and i bet these songs are great live, but nothing is as memorable as “A Fractured Hand” or “Arms of Perdition”. It is a very solid record nonetheless, they just didnt seem to move forward with their style.
The first track got me hyped pretty well, but other than that I found my self skipping through the songs about 30 seconds through. How many types of break downs can you write until they all sound the same.
Its like that episode of South Park where General Disarray says, “Simpsons did it!”….
May I say, “Acacia Strain did it!!!” lolzzzzzzzz