Review by Sandre the Giant
The state of Georgia has really given us some of metal’s most inventive and interesting bands over the years, particularly in the doom/sludge/prog persuasion. My latest discovery are Dead Register, whose new record ‘Alive’ is out now through Seeing Red Records, and looks to add a bit of shoegaze into that previous mix too.
The opening title track steps straight out into a hazy, burning sun and desert dust; psychedelic leads sweep across a hypnotic groove and a soulful croon. You get quite a bit of the shimmering shoegaze atmosphere here, tethered to this earth with a low doomy rumble and never really disappearing too far into the ether. ‘Let Me In’ is much the same, a gloriously smooth stoner doom piece that slinks gracefully through a twilight mood. That isn’t to say that it is all light and airy, given the grinding riff that opens ‘Circle of Lies’; there’s still plenty of crunch lurking beneath the sapping gloom. Vocalist M. Chvasta’s voice is like Ian Astbury with dashes of John Garcia, or Jim Morrison if he’d grown up on Sabbath and Pentagram, which oddly suits the heavily Cure-inspired ‘In Between’ as well as the sleeker ‘Two Silhouettes’ and the groaning Neurosian shifts of ‘Old Flame’.
‘Alive’ is a record that is sodden in atmospheric gloom but never drowns in it, much more content to sit at the surface and relay beautiful melodies. Dead Register’s work imagines bands like the Cult or the Cure but filtered through Kyuss and maybe even a little Moonspell? Each track has just that little something extra to my expectations, and that’s why I found ‘Alive’ to be a captivating listen. Gloomy post-doom is close, but nothing else sounds like Dead Register and that is enough to recommend for me. Superb stuff.
https://www.facebook.com/deadregister
https://deadregister.bandcamp.com/
https://seeingredrecords.bandcamp.com/music
The Killchain 