Damnum, this is good.

Written by dickkafa on 27.03.2022 at 18:48

Didn't like the clean vocal parts. This could be a 9 from me if there aren't any cleans

I really don't like the cleans either. I feel they are necessary and if done well it would have been great. But this guy annoys me. I'm not much of a fan of the growls either in most parts

This is a huge disappointment for me. It doesn't hold a candle to the two previous masterpieces they released.

The previous albums were really good. It's undoubted that this is a good album, the technical prowess of those instruments is unmatched. However none of the songs really stuck out for me. The memorability factor for this album is kinda low

I've listened to the full album a few times but called home is on constant repeat. such a good fucking song. reminiscent of old opeth. between this and the new shape of despair for aoty currently

Written by hellsmiles on 01.08.2022 at 09:05

I've listened to the full album a few times but called home is on constant repeat. such a good fucking song. reminiscent of old opeth. between this and the new shape of despair for aoty currently

100% my favourite song on the album, it's got mad Opeth vibes

I’ve been a big Allegaeon fan for all their previous albums but this one doesn’t work at all for me for some reason .. Somehow it feels like it lacks memorable moments. Maybe because it has less of those melodeath influences and is more rooted in plain tech death, but it feels pretty boring and repetitive to me sadly. The production also feels quite flat compared to their older albums, I get ear fatigue from this mixing ..

Written by Liafev on 25.08.2022 at 15:43

I’ve been a big Allegaeon fan for all their previous albums but this one doesn’t work at all for me for some reason .. Somehow it feels like it lacks memorable moments. Maybe because it has less of those melodeath influences and is more rooted in plain tech death, but it feels pretty boring and repetitive to me sadly. The production also feels quite flat compared to their older albums, I get ear fatigue from this mixing ..

100% agree

I haven't revisted this album for months but tbh I've gone right off tech-death recently.

Perhaps the critics who say their albums are too long have a point. Sometimes less is indeed more.

This is much better than the Apoptosis album

I reviewed this one for the Latin American webzine The Dark Melody. A powerful and very consistent listening.

It's easy to give Damnum a high rating objectively but I have a hard time liking it overall.

Basically, I preferred Apoptosis a lot more. This is still very good but it's closer to the typical kind of death metal writing that I don't enjoy. The biggest issue for me is that they leaned into the clean singing a bit too much. On Apoptosis the clean singing never felt in the way but on Damnum I think it tries to take the spotlight too often. When the clean singing is softer like through most of Called Home I don't mind it, but on other songs I get too many metalcore vibes from it. Of Beasts And Worms is a good example of it being fine during the intro but not so much after that.

Despite the clean vocals, all the songs are still good. The writing and instrumentation are pretty much flawless. Even if there are parts of the writing that aren't really my thing there are so many other parts I can pick out that I love. There is a ton of variety to the songs and a lot of different atmospheres which if nothing else keeps the album from ever feeling like it stagnates. It's objectively a very good album but I don't think I'm going to relisten to it very much.


EDIT: Apparently I should have added more positive things to better explain myself but I was trying to keep this short rather than pretty much writing a full review.

I was mostly comparing Damnum to Apoptosis, Allegaeon's previous album which I loved every minute of. I focused half of what I said on the negative aspects because I think that's really all that separates Damnum from Apoptosis in terms of quality, otherwise they are pretty close.

The writing throughout Damnum is objectively very good even if there are some bits of the writing that I subjectively don't enjoy as much. I said "it's closer to the typical kind of death metal writing that I don't enjoy" but it's not a total departure from what I liked so much about Apoptosis. I prefer when Allegaeon are being melodic masters instead of including a few more passages of less interesting simpler standard muddy death metal which I felt like they do here. Even so, I don't consider any of the songs to be filler, they all have good structures and are memorable on their own. The album overall has a good structure and pace too, something that many other bands mess up.

For most of Damnum the guitars, bass, and drums have a lot of talent on display with the solos and intricacies of how everything is balanced. The harsh vocals are good, I just don't like most of the clean singing which I could ignore if there weren't little bits of clean singing in most songs evenly throughout the album. However those bits come and go pretty quick so no song completely loses me. Called Home is the only song where the clean singing doesn't bother me at all because of how it's done. I get a modern Katatonia feel from that song because of that singing which I didn't expect.

So maybe during 10-15% of this album I'm not exactly enjoying myself, and since it isn't quite the same as Apoptosis I don't think I'll relisten to it as much. I'm sitting at like an 8.5 on Damnum which I round up to a 9 because I know that my issues with it are due to my personal taste and not the band's fault for doing what they clearly love. If I ever relisten to this and then consider it to be an 8.4 I'll be sure to change my rating to an 8.

Written by Zyk on 07.05.2024 at 00:19

It's easy to give Damnum a high rating objectively but I have a hard time liking it overall.

Basically, I preferred Apoptosis a lot more. This is still very good but it's closer to the typical kind of death metal writing that I don't enjoy. The biggest issue for me is that they leaned into the clean singing a bit too much. On Apoptosis the clean singing never felt in the way but on Damnum I think it tries to take the spotlight too often. When the clean singing is softer like through most of Called Home I don't mind it, but on other songs I get too many metalcore vibes from it. Of Beasts And Worms is a good example of it being fine during the intro but not so much after that.

Despite the clean vocals, all the songs are still good. The writing and instrumentation are pretty much flawless. Even if there are parts of the writing that aren't really my thing there are so many other parts I can pick out that I love. There is a ton of variety to the songs and a lot of different atmospheres which if nothing else keeps the album from ever feeling like it stagnates. It's objectively a very good album but I don't think I'm going to relisten to it very much.

But you still rate it a 9 which according to our rating scale means 'excellent'. Reading your comment doesn't make it sound like a 9, more like a 6 or a 7 at best.

Written by Nejde on 07.05.2024 at 01:03

Written by Zyk on 07.05.2024 at 00:19

It's easy to give Damnum a high rating objectively but I have a hard time liking it overall.

Basically, I preferred Apoptosis a lot more. This is still very good but it's closer to the typical kind of death metal writing that I don't enjoy. The biggest issue for me is that they leaned into the clean singing a bit too much. On Apoptosis the clean singing never felt in the way but on Damnum I think it tries to take the spotlight too often. When the clean singing is softer like through most of Called Home I don't mind it, but on other songs I get too many metalcore vibes from it. Of Beasts And Worms is a good example of it being fine during the intro but not so much after that.

Despite the clean vocals, all the songs are still good. The writing and instrumentation are pretty much flawless. Even if there are parts of the writing that aren't really my thing there are so many other parts I can pick out that I love. There is a ton of variety to the songs and a lot of different atmospheres which if nothing else keeps the album from ever feeling like it stagnates. It's objectively a very good album but I don't think I'm going to relisten to it very much.

But you still rate it a 9 which according to our rating scale means 'excellent'. Reading your comment doesn't make it sound like a 9, more like a 6 or a 7 at best.

I assumed it would sound that way, which is why I used the word "objectively" twice to try to explain why I still rate it that high. I do think it is an excellent album because my issues with it equate to about 10-15% of the album while the rest I even said I consider to be "flawless" and said there are many parts that I "love." Sometimes it's easier to describe criticisms rather than praise, which is why I usually end up saying an album "is good because of its writing, variety, and atmosphere" because that's usually what I'm looking for and there's only so many ways to say it.