Band:	Happy Days
Album:	Cause Of Death: Life
Style:	Depressive black metal
Release date:	March 06, 2012
Guest review by:	Ch'ti

Disc I
01. Happy Days
02. Broken
03. Cold Aggression
04. For These Wounds Will Never Be As Deep As This Emptiness
05. Industrial Melancholy
06. Alone And Cold
07. No Point In Living
08. Take Me Away
09. Abigail
10. Abwärts [Freitod cover]

Disc II
01. This Will Hurt
02. Heroin Is Good For You
03. Agony Becomes Unforgettable Seering Emptiness
04. No Solution
05. Forever Asleep (Dead)

1h45 of DSBM is the equivalent of that 7h30 Hungarian movie that begins with a long 10-minute shot of cows, just cows. At the beginning I'm intrigued, after a certain moment I'm doubtful, in the middle I appreciate it, and towards the end I get bored, but thinking about it afterwards, I surprise myself, because I retain good memories of it.

This is my general feeling about Cause Of Death: Life. It's worth stating that I have only listened to a few DSBM albums, and I never had very good memories of them, so seeing the length of this album, I was preparing myself for the worst, even if I had heard positive discussion of it, and of Happy Days in general.

The first good point: the vocals, which are classic-sounding, but I prefer that to the cringe vocals that I have already heard several times in this genre. In terms of instruments, the results are also rather positive. The guitars are pretty good in general, and the drums don't sound terrible.

Some tracks are more memorable than others, such as "For These Wounds Will Never Be As Deep As This Emptiness", which has an ending that I found very nice. But my favorite, which is also the most popular track on the album (maybe I'm a conformist after all), marks the end of the first half of the album; "Abigail", whose first part sets the tone for the whole album with dialogue that is quite cleverly delivered, follows this with an instrumental part that is the icing on the cake. This song is the main reason for the fame of Cause Of Death: Life.

Unfortunately it marks the end of the really interesting part of the album, and shows off its main shortcoming, which is quite obvious, its length. Because indeed, few albums this long can claim to be captivating from start to finish, and 1h45 for an album, good or not, is like a long film; at some point, you're not really into it anymore, it's just asking too much. Taking into account that with each generation, attention span declines, to inevitably adapt to the very short video formats offered by social networks, this type of album will likely become less and less appreciated. If someone used to doorstops and long-winded films tells you so, the length of the album is really felt, almost as much as the length of this review.

I can't really say if it's the length or the lack of inspiration of the tape, but the second part, let's call it the "post-Abigail" part, is much less captivating than what the first songs offered; most of them feel much less innovative and original. Despite everything, I must say that overall I had a rather good feeling about the record, and that several days later I surprised myself by keeping a rather pleasant memory of it, the sign of a good album. To conclude, although initially attracted by the dichotomy between the name of the band and the genre, as well as the name of the album, I must admit that Happy Days did a good job with Cause Of Death: Life, and I find that of the few albums I have listened to in this genre, this one is by far the best.