Damnation AD - In This Life Or The Next
Damnation AD, whom have in certain underground scenes quite a cult status, have just released their fifth album since 1993. Between now and 1993 Damnation AD was several years inactive but the evolving of technique made them come together. I know this sounds very weird so I will give the short version of the story. Ken Olden who was guitar player in Damnation AD became a studio producer. After several years he got in contact with Michael McTernan who asked him to record his vocals for another project. Ken, who worked with Protools for several years, recorded the vocals and realised Damnation AD was never recorded with Protools. At that point he got curious what Damnation AD would sound on Protools and practically pulled everything back together.
Well that’s quite an intro to the new album of Damnation AD called In this Life Or The Next. Kicking of with the intro ‘Exspecta Taut Abbysus’ Damnation AD gets you ready for an album of good old metalcore. The intro doesn’t sound very special but the eruption of sound during the beginning of the second song called ‘Knot’ promises a lot. A little more speed than average but still the brutal voice of Michael McTernan that gives me the feeling I got run over by a dump truck after the first song.
When the album continues Damnation AD slows down to the old tempo. With grooving riffs that sound so dirty that even the drycleaner would be scared of it. They take over your mind and drag you into this album. Kicking you senseless till the end of the album to finally spit you out and left you bruised and battered behind. This is how Damnation AD is supposed to sound.
It was pretty obvious Damnation AD had to come out with something special to overthrow their greatest album Kingdom Of Lost Souls. So the addition of several guest vocalists on the album is always a nice extra. This resulted in songs with: John Henri from Darkest Hour, Carl Buechner from Earth Crisis/Freya, Wes Eisold from Give Up The Ghost and Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy. Every song has a great extra dimension except ‘If You Could Remember’. In a way it’s just not right to hear those juicy poprock vocals on a Damnation AD album.
In This Life Or The Next is a great album that can live up to the standards of Damnation AD but it didn’t overthrow their greatest album ever. Especially when you consider that the songs ‘Rain As My Veil’ , ‘The Hanged Man’ and ‘Addiction’ are previous released. Luckily enough the latest song, the title track of the album, just gives that final kick where you were waiting for and pulls the total score a bit higher.
83/1001Details Victory Records
Released on Tuesday Jun 12th, 2007
Metalcore
Writer @Niamen on Saturday Jul 21st, 2007
Tags: #Damnation AD
Tracklisting
1. Exspecta Taut Abyssus
2. Knot Watch
3. Don't Feel A Thing
4. Let Me In
5. Jigsaw
6. The Hangedman
7. If You Could Remember
8. Consider This A Warning
9. Rain As My Veil
10. Addiction
11. Jigsaw Reprise
12. In This Life Or The Next
2. Knot Watch
3. Don't Feel A Thing
4. Let Me In
5. Jigsaw
6. The Hangedman
7. If You Could Remember
8. Consider This A Warning
9. Rain As My Veil
10. Addiction
11. Jigsaw Reprise
12. In This Life Or The Next
Line up
Michael McTernan - Vocals
Ken Olden - Guitar
Alexander Merchlinsky - Bass
Colin Kercz - Drums
Ken Olden - Guitar
Alexander Merchlinsky - Bass
Colin Kercz - Drums