Mordgrimm Records

Dragged Into Sunlight, a British death/doom quartet from Liverpool, demonstrate their proficient sludgy death metal chops on their debut, Hatred for Mankind. It's not immediately derivative of anything else and actually comes off as something close to original, and appropriately heavy. The most stand-out thing about this album up front is the artwork by the exceptional artist Justin Bartlett. It doesn't require any words of description, since looking at it will tell you all you'd ever need to know.

The entire album is a goliath mixture of death metal and sludge, with a focus primarily on death, incorporating a huge, powerful sound that the production did a competent job of highlighting. No polishing and overproduction tricks will be found here, with enough muddy tones to give it a dirty feel, especially when the diluge of crawling, bulldozing sludge takes over (this happens frequently). When I said this was proficient I meant exactly that. There are no technical flaws nor is there obvious lacking in the musicianship to note, and these British boys have a decent grasp of dynamics insofar as dynamics can really be used in a hybrid of sludge and death metal. But it doesn't go beyond that. The album is heavy and dark, and the riffs often simple, sometimes familiar, and it fails to really leave a mark.

There's a distinct feel to this album that suggests a metalcore background for the band members about whom, admittedly, I know nothing. It doesn't always rear its head, but it is present in the vocals that often take the form of some kind of squeal and a facade of anger or "toughness" not fitting of death metal but suitable for what's often called "deathcore" (Note: I will be putting "deathcore" in quotation marks as I don't wish to convey that this is a legitimate or serious subgenre of metal that should be given much attention aside from its status as a fad and annoying trend). Not to say this is a "deathcore" album. This is better than that, and unlike bands often labeled as "deathcore", this has musical roots in death metal and sludge, and still seems firmly grounded in these styles most of the time, without as many vomit inducing modern frills as one finds in the silly "deathcore" genre. But it does swing dangerously close to this obnoxiousness from time to time, losing the essence of a believable death metal aesthetic after only a short time.  

Two tracks on the album exceed 10 minutes, though they're aimless, pointless, and seem like they were forced. By this I mean that I think the band sat down and said, "let's make a couple songs that are pretty long, even though we only have enough music for a 4 minute long song". In lengthy metal tracks, it's often a tricky balance between keeping it interesting enough to keep the attention of the listener focused on that one piece and recognizing it as a single piece, and not overloading the senses to make it a choppy, incongruous and tiresome mess. These two tracks fall into the latter category, to my ears. The main cause for this is that I don't find the sludgy moments of this album to be convincing in the least. Where sludge tends to build a feeling of tension and slow, hateful aggression, and comes out of some emotional devastation, the sludge that Dragged Into Sunlight are presenting feels less convincing. It may temporarily evoke some imagery of madness, but for as long as it goes on, its effects wear  thin pretty fast. They never take the devastating plunge into pain and suffering as sludge requires, but replace it with a facade of darkness that reveals itself to be less haunting than it intends.

The death metal moments on Hatred for Mankind aren't very superior to the failed sludge elements, and often the two are mixed together into some mutant form of death sludge that isn't as cool as it sounds. There are moments within each song that a sort of harsh and relentless death metal aesthetic comes into play and does develop a sort of brutal element full of dark tones and riff-oriented metal. These riffs are simplistic, but that isn't necessarily a hindrance, in that they waste no time on complexity and they cleverly get right to the point of primitive tonal battery. This doesn't play as huge a role in Dragged Into Sunlight's sound as I had hoped. It comes off as half-hearted and inexperienced, but not inexperienced in a charming way that raw and primitive bands can often pull off so brilliantly. Inexperienced in the sense that these guys may have an idea of what they're trying to do, but they don't know how to do it. I've read many reviews that paint this album as a masterful work of modern death metal that needs to be experienced by everyone, but I have no choice but to entirely disagree. On the surface it is aesthetically pleasing, sounding filthy and nasty, and dark. It succeeds at a few minor things. Upon closer inspection, it's shallow and doesn't have a lot to offer.   

5.7/10