Destinity have been in the business now for over 15 years and have a quite substantial back catalogue, a statistic I was rather surprised to find out having never heard of them before in the slightest. I am however a big fan of French metal, as some of you will well know, and I was very eager to try out someone completely new to me. The order of the day is modern technical death metal, although they would appear to be another band that has forsaken initial black metal roots in order to chase the popular vote.
Bands don’t get to release 8 albums without having some degree of talent (Korn excepted), and as you would expect Destinity are more than adequate in the proficiency department. The bassline rolls and chugs along like a beast, and the guitarists make full use of the fretboards without descending into misguided wankery. The vocals are nice and aggressive with a very solid growl about them, but the combination sounds all too familiar. Opening track ‘Black Sun Rising’ is comprised of riffs that sound like you have heard a hundred times before yet abjectly fail to pinpoint, whilst the structure of the song is so predictable I was able to tell what notes were about to be played a heartbeat ahead of actually hearing them on the first listen. Ok, so we’ve established that it’s not exactly inspiring stuff, so what have they got to raise them above the average? The truth is, not an awful lot really.
After being worn down by several listens of ‘Resolve in Crimson’, I did find some aspects that stood out despite bypassing me the first few times around as I was being swept away on a tide of apathy. Guitarists Zephiros and Seb have a great understanding and manage on occasion to come up with some lead breaks worthy of early Maiden, yet manage to make it fit within a deathcore style. Equally, the drumming is of a very high quality despite the predictability. The rhythms are driving, super tight and polished to a fine sheen. Listening back a final time, I can absolutely identify the pointy at which this album lost me, and it is the 4th track ‘Can’t Stand The Sight’, which from its opening passage through the wet chorus to its overlong fade into a welcome nothingness, just smells badly of poorly recycled material. There is barely a note that you can’t see coming a mile off.
So the verdict is ultimately damning. Here we have a group of very talented musicians with a total lack of vision and what seems to be a total reluctance to try anything that could be considered inventive. I struggle to find a single spot on the album where I could honestly say ‘That’s different, I like what they’ve come up with there!’, but that is because I’ve heard this all before. It’s performed with a flair and technical proficiency that deserves much much better, yet the almost criminal outcome is an album so forgettable that I cannot recall a single passage off the top of my head in what must be 10 listens. This is a thoroughly disappointing example of a band going through the motions, and it can only be recommended to fans of this very specific type of deathcore where it doesn’t really matter what album they put on from their collection, as they all sound very much the same.
(5/10 Lee Kimber)
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