The Berzerker - Dissimulate

No, it's not the band from Clerks. The Berzerker is an Australian death metal band with a penchant for drum machines and wearing elaborate monster masks on stage. I had avoided the band's output for months because all of the hype over their costumes. It didn't help they were on Earache records, a label that spent several years largely abandoning extreme metal in favor of horrible albums from bands like Ultraviolence and Janus Stark. I finally broke down and bought their self-titled album, which I was pleasantly surprised by. The band was advertised as an industrial/death metal hybrid, although unlike a lot of bands that meet that description, the Berzerker didn't skimp on the brutality. I don't think it was anything groundbreaking, but The Berzerker's debut was one of the strongest albums to be relesed with the Earache logo on it in years.

Their sophomore album Dissimulate is different in several respects. For one thing, the experimental "noise" tracks on the first album are absent here. This is just as well, as the tracks seemed like filler, only put there to make the album seem longer. The production is also much better this time around; the drum machine is still present but it doesn't seem to overpower some the songs the way it did on the first album. Dissimulate sees the band pulling back from the more experimental elements and really ramping up the death metal portion of their sound. The songs are all speed, all the time, and hit the listener like a jackhammer. The only pause is the attack are the movie samples that start off some of the tracks. The final track is a cover of Carcass's "Corporal Jigsore Quandry", which also features the only guitar solos on the album. I wish the band had included a few more guitar solos, because the songs start to loose their distinctiveness. Or perhaps they should have thrown a slow, dirge-y type song. That approach works wonders for Marduk, another band that sometimes has trouble with knowing how to make the fast songs on their albums stand on their own.

I think The Berzerker's best work is still ahead of them, but this is a definitely an excellent effort from one of the bands that's making music from Earache records worth buying again. If you haven't made the acquaintance of The Berzerker, this is a good album to start with.