Divine Heresy have the enviable and unenviable task of being the band for ex
Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares. Enviable because they now possess one of extreme metal’s best and most recognisable guitar sounds in Dino’s machine gun staccato riffing. Unenviable because they now will be forever compared to such metal landmarks as Demanufacture and Obsolete. Which of course is totally unfair but yet the metal press and others will always do it, as it provides a good talking point. But what of the actual album? Well you know what this sounds like, the riffs could be taken from any
Fear Factory b-sides but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Fear Factory fans have been crying out for them since Dino left after
Digimortal.
Archetype and
Transgression were decent enough albums but both lacked that killer mechanized feel that Dino’s cold riffs left on earlier albums. They are here in abundance though, the close of
Royal Blood Heresy a prime example. Vocalist Tommy Cummings doesn’t possess the massive range of Burton C. Bell but equips himself well on tracks like
Closure and
Failed Creation, showing that his clean vocals can be a potent weapon alongside his more deathly growls. It’s somewhat of a relief that such albums can still be created in a metalcore/deathcore suffocated musical climate, an album that drips pure quality from every riff.
And of course, have the rhythm section provided by members of such death metal luminaries as
Nile,
Decrepit Birth and
Hate Eternal never hinders does it? Buy this record, then hope that
Fear Factory will one day sound this good again!
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