Dew-Scented - Invocation

The new Dew-Scented album Invocation has blissful moments of great songwriting and solid performance.  Every time I turn one Dew-Scented song on, my fist is pumping to the cymbal splashes and tight thrashy guitars.  Fun riffs and energy to spare, Dew-Scented songs have me bouncing off the walls.  But four songs into the album and it’s time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I don’t even know why, cause I just ate breakfast.  Now don’t get me wrong, as I sit here picking grape jelly off of my once yellow shirt, I think to myself, goddamn, there are some really great tracks on this album.   For example, “Arise From Decay,” “Torn to Shreds,” “A Critical Mass,” (with guitar solos that were immaculate!) and “Have No Mercy on Us” which has some great groove guitar lines that break back into palm muted thrash riffs.  This tickles me in all the right ways.  So maybe it’s that Dew-Scented can write great individual riffs and impressive vigorous songs, but can’t combine all of their hard work to make a great cohesive album.

I must be wrong, right? How can you have great songs but not an album?  Well, the presentation of things has an impact on the overall experience of an album, and in turn the individual songs.  The album production is heavy and pristine; I’m not saying that was the issue either.  What I am trying to say, is if you were going to make a presentation of your work you would go A to B to C; Red to Orange to Yellow, maybe calling Red back in as a reprise.  And if, in your portfolio, you had red, slightly less red, rosy red, and red orange, the viewer would say this is far too similar for me to discern this red to this -red.  When that one color is all you see, it loses its intensity.  If you keep putting too much pepper eventually your taste buds need more.  If you drink too much beer eventually you need to consume even more for a buzz.  Get it?

On to “Artificial Life,” which was another high-octane, fun track.  It, perhaps, was trying to do something a little different on the album via a voiceover.  On this big, fast, heavy song why throw in some drudge voiceover to deflate the song?  It was certainly not for variety’s sake.  All I could think was: “Hey is that Creepy McCreeperston coming to be creepy on this not creepy track?”  And really, who wants that marring their solid track otherwise?  When Mr. McCreeperston comes back in “Revel in Contempt” and I have to check that I’m not listening to the same track as before, I again shake my fist and scream, “Red, Red, Orange Red!”  Unity in sound is important, but redundancy is easy to achieve and sometimes hard to avoid.

Look, don’t think that it’s me, cause there’s nothing I want to do more than to enjoy a thrash album, especially from super skilled 16-year-veterans Dew-Scented!  Then why did this album leave me so neutral?  I really liked a lot of the songs, so I think the problem has to break down to something incredibly simple.  Maybe this is just way too much Dew-Scented.  Yes, it is a good thing that Dew-Scented wants to write you a lot of tracks during their longest break in albums yet.  They even want to give you some bonus tracks like “On the Brink” and a D.R.I. cover “Thrashard” but maybe if Invocation as an album were more exclusive instead of inclusive of all of the tracks, this could be a great album.  Cut the fat, give me a 40-minute album and make me hungry for more, instead of a 52:52 minute album with bonuses that will leave too much on my plate.  If Dew-Scented would practice being succinct, their well-composed and well-performed music, and specifically albums, would be light years ahead of its peers and of itself.

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*Comments:

June 12, 2010

Reviewer: Lynora

Release Date: May 24th, 2010
Label: Metal Blade Records /
Prosthetic Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Downfall (Instrumental)
2.  Arise From Decay
3.  The Invocation
4.  Have No Mercy on Us
5.  Artificial Life
6.  Condemnation
7.  Totem (Instrumental)
8.  Torn to Shreds
9.  Revel in Contempt
10.  A Critical Mass
11.  Global Hysteria
12.  Slaves of Consent

Limited edition bonus tracks:
13.  On the Brink
14.  Thrashard (D.R.I. Cover)

Total playing time:  52:52