Music Review: Deadsy – Phantasmagore

What do you get when you cross Greg Allman and Cher? You get the goth-metal sounds of Deadsy. Fronted by Elijah Blue Allman, Deadsy is pure sound in motion. With a low and dissonant tone, Elijah’s low baritone style, Dr Nner’s synths and Carlton’s Ztar (a guitar synthesizer) give the music a surreal quality.

According to the band, Deadsy is an institution that was developed to purify and primify the human solution of sound and vision. It is adamantly committed to the realization of a comprehensive conveyance of simplicity and complexity's synergistic unions – a sort of "simplexity" or "complicity," if you will. This institution is comprised of five separate entities: academia, leisure, horror, war and science-medicine.

This band is surviving on perseverance and instinct. In 1995, as they were about to release a self-titled debut album under the Electra/Sire label, Sire split with Electra and Deadsy was left on the shelf. After a series of false starts, the band finally signed with Korn’s Elementree record label and in 2003 released “Commencement." The album debuted in the top half of the Billboard 200 and sold more than 100,000 copies.

Now after four long years, Phantasmagore is finally released on the Immortal label. Does it live up to the commitment? Absolutely! This is goth-metal shred at its best!

“Razor Love,” with its dueling guitars and addictive beat, is great. “Babes in Abyss” is a fast rock song with a great chorus and guitar work. “Paint It Black” is simply awesome. They have taken the Stones cover and made it their own. Complete with harmonium, tambour and sarongi. I would buy the album for these three songs alone.

There are slow melodic tracks like “Better Than You Know,” traditional Deadsy with a Gary Numan-like finish, “Phantasmagore” – which has an '80s style opening with Blue’s menacing vocals, and “The Last Story Ever,” slow dark and haunting.

There are rocking tracks such as “Time” –- they use parts of Zepplin’s “Immigrant Song” — and “Asura,” with its solid rock style. “Book of Black Dreams” is not my favorite, but it still has moments.

Deadsy first started separating themselves from the crowd within the L.A club shows and the avant-garde staging which earned them word of mouth. Now with the release of Phantasmagore, their legions shall grow even more.

The tracks are:
Razor Love
Carrying Over
Babes in Abyss
Paint It Back
Better than you know
Book of Black Dreams
Asura
The last story of ever
Phantasmagore
Time
Health & Theory

My biggest problem with the CD is the cover art which does not represent them very well. Furthermore, there are no liner notes, but since I generally purchase an album for the music I can ignore this oversight.

My final grade on this CD is a good solid A