The entrance to my office
Mummy, mummy! I’ve found some death metal! Proper death metal and I like it!
Towards The Megalith, the debut from death metal sorta-supergroup Disma is as deathly as it gets in my book.
Old school death metal to the core (and no -core about it).
Partial as I am to hybrid sounds full of spunky punky fun, Disma just cranks out slow and low, filthy murk and I can’t help but like it.
Detuned to the point that the guitar strings must be operating outside the normal laws of physics, Towards the Megalith is absurdly fuzzy.
Disma attract oft-used adjectives like “crushing” and “brutal” and are described as ridiculously heavy.
One the one hand, this is all true. On the other, pish!
Towards the Megalith has a lightness of touch, a playfulness about it. A cheeky wiggle of the hips even.
Disma write catchy riffs and – unlike so many death metal bands – know how to let them breathe. Despite the rumbling tones, subterranean vocals and the sepulchral atmosphere, I think this record has a sense of fun.
You could argue that Disma don’t offer anything new but for us newer fans of this style, the flawless execution of Towards The Megalith renders this argument meaningless.
Get into it:
Monkey Defies Gravity 
Funny that you post about this; I was actually looking at this cover in high-res the other day. It is a sweet cover. That and “The Tomb Awaits” from Entrails are just fucking cool– makes me wanna get the vinyl just for the front. Disma’s cover looks like one of the Satanic sections of Dagobah.
Musically, they remind me, in a great way, of Acephalix– especially the break at 1:31. I love death metal riffs when the band in question knows how to deploy them strategically, rather than carpet-bomb me with them.
Yes! You put that so well: “I love death metal riffs when the band in question knows how to deploy them strategically, rather than carpet-bomb me with them.”
I find it wearying and boring rather than “intense” or “brutal” when bands take the impenetrable riff storm approach. It’s as much about space and gaps gentlemen as it is about notes.
I’ve been listening to Entrails this week too and found a fair bit to enjoy. Another cool cover but it does bug me a bit how their logo so closely resembles that of Entombed. I do like how the Disma artwork continues across the six panels of the gatefold, properly epic.
Entrails are pretty much just another version of Entombed; but to their credit, they were around while “Entombed” was still “Nihilist.”
It’s like metal bands (death metal in particular for some reason) don’t understand that fundamental dynamic in music (regardless of what style you play): tension/release, tension/release.
They’re all about the “release” part, I guess.
It’s awesome to see that you like this one. Was my review something that nudged you toward giving it a try?
Your review definitely put it on my radar! Then it kept cropping up in the comments at IO, so I knew I had to give it a spin. I wasn’t expecting to like it tbh as I am not receptive to so much DM but yeah, this is right up my alley. Now I am leaning towards giving Vasaeleth a go and even Mitochondrion – albums I wouldn’t even have even considered a few months ago. I really do love it when certain sounds start to make sense, allowing me to listen to new bands and enjoy them. Still can’t get into Suffocation though…
Understandable. I had already gotten into a lot of melodic death metal, and was listening to Suffocation one day and then there was an audible “click” in my head. Ever since then–death metal freak.
I don’t care how many Swedish clones I’ve heard. Fuck if everybody didn’t SWOON when they heard this record, whether or not they have history in death metal for longer than a day or twenty years.
I swooned. I’m not ashamed to admit it.
http://metalbandcamp.com/2012/07/disma-towards-megalith.html
I’ve been waiting for ages to quote your review š