Cardiac Arrest - A Parallel Dimension of Despair

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An album you hear, or a show where you go, can become a reason for Metal fans to create new bands. It’s something obvious, I suppose, but they aren’t enough. Once more, I say the same thing: you must have personality, because playing music is not a matter of how good is your musical technique, or about the bands you love. Works like “A Parallel Dimension of Despair”, from US band CARDIAC ARREST, are a waste of our time.

Sorry to be so true and straight, but on the album, you hear the same Old School Death Metal from the 90s, based on names as CANNIBAL CORPSE, DEATH, DISMEMBER, BOLT THROWER, AUTOPSY and others. But it reminds a lot these bands, and so we can say that the quartet lacks some musical personality, the same factor that made these names above legendary. Their music is not bad, but it isn’t personal. Playing Death Metal is not a matter of how distorted and raw you can play, or how low are the tunes of the guttural voices, but to bear a musical identity.

On the sound quality, we have no complaints. The production of “A Parallel Dimension of Despair” was done in a way that mixes the musical elements of the past with the modern clean and brutal sound. All the musical instruments are presented with good tunes, the vocals are on their due places, and everything is fine. But as long as we must say that “what matters on a disk is how good the songs are”, the things become complicated. They sound as many bands we heard before, like the band members were newcomers.

You can hear good musical ideas throughout the album, but “Immoral and Absurd” with its fast approach, some musical technique used on “Unforgiving… Unrelenting”, the fine work from bass guitar and drums presented on “When the Teeth Sink In”, the good slow tempos of “When Murder is Justified” (maybe the album’s finest moment, bearing good guitars), the abusive Hardcore influence shown on “It Takes Form”, and “Voices from the Tomb” show that they are talented, have good musical ideas, but all becomes lost under this lack of personality, something that appears on bands that can leave their influences aside.

CARDIAC ARREST has a lot to offer, but not on this album.

Originality: 4
Songwriting: 7
Memorability: 5
Production: 8