Derelict: Perpetuation (2012)

Shackled by my Derelict Indoctrination

Review by joanismylover, the third metal attorney.

Bob Dylan once said "Don't criticize what you don't understand." Adhering to Mr. Dylan's advice here will be difficult because I've been asked to "critique" this release from Derelict, a technical death metal band from, where else, Canada. And I don't really "do" technical in my music. Full disclosure, I have tried many times but do not get bands like Opeth and Dillinger Escape Plan. Everyone and their mother, including Joan, thinks these two bands are great. I don't doubt they are, I just don't get it. Opeth bore me to tears. DEP just sounds like noise.


The genre descriptors for technical death metal include words such as "challenging," "demanding" and "complicated." This is regarding the song structure and the playing of the song. It's fair to say that playing and structuring a song can be demanding on the player, but it shouldn't be demanding on the listener. I like my death metal on the pre-Spiritual Healing side of Death, on the gutter of Autopsy, but I'm not averse to "technical," provided it meets the one standard to which I hold all metal music, be it doom, sludge, stoner, black, thrash or death. And that standard is: Does it kick ass? Does it rock? Does it have swagger? Does it move my ass and my neck? Is it the Melvins or Thin Lizzy?

Derelict does the technical part of death metal well. They play what I can only imagine is very challenging and demanding technical death metal songs, but unlike others in the genre, they don't seem to get overly lost in these technicalities. There are songs here, although the moments where I recognize them as such were few and far between. The opener and title track "Perpetuation" highlight the song part of the album. This is technical, but I started to move a little listening to it. Ditto for "Digital Birthright" and the album closer "Emergence." The band can hit a groove but as is the case with most songs in this genre,most of the time, once they hit that groove, Derelict leave it never to return. They do this in favor of technicality and progressing the song but it leaves me, the listener, challenged. At the end of the day, these songs don't really kick ass. They don't rock (that much). They have a little swagger, but it didn't move my ass or my neck. So while I won't criticize Derelict, I will criticize myself. I don't really get this kind of music and don't understand why people play it. It's me, Derelict, it's not you.

Bonus points for the cool, non-technical death metal, cover, however.

3 out of 5 stars



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