Let us throw a little context at you before we get too deep into this review. Dead Soul are a Swedish duo signed to the same label as acts like Crowbar, Eyehategod and Napalm Death. Do they sound like any of these highly lauded pioneers of face shredding metal? Do they fuck.
‘The Sheltering Sky’ offers possibly one of the most left-field, unexpected, interesting listens of the last year. Taking the road-wearied bluesy stylings of guitarist/vocalist Anders Landelius and the electronic, industrial-tinged work of Niels Nielsen and smashing them together like two different coloured M & M’s in the Hadron Collider shouldn’t yield any positive results written down, but on record it’s a different story.
Opener ‘Until The Last Breath’ opens with some pots’n’pans style drumming and an upbeat tempo, joined by some Euro-dance flavoured synth work, and an uneasy synth drone. When Landelius’ vocals come in, it forces a tonal shift like suddenly encountering a rogue cornflake in a bowl of cheerios – unexpected and a bit weird, but an enjoyable occurrence. His bluesy, often soulful voice is an odd fit, and it doesn’t mesh with Nielsen’s sounds 100% of the time, but these often immersion breaking islands of discomfort seem like a purposeful addition to make sure you’re paying attention.
‘The Fool’ kicks in with a moody acoustic guitar shuffle before being engulfed by angsty synth drums and shimmering synths that impart a sense of the dramatic. ‘Shattered Dreams’ is all slow, stately crawl and echoing industrial noise, ending in soulful vocals and ringing organ like something from the soundtrack to True Blood.
‘Dirt Road’ is perhaps the stand-out track. A vulnerable, stripped back affair of soft piano chords and fragile, honest vocals, it adds a lot of depth, a nice counterpoint to the largely upbeat synth overtones on the other tracks. ‘The Abyss’ is a stomping shitkicker of a riff, locked in tight instrumentation and desperate, wailing vocals. ‘Home By The Sea’ is lush, easygoing melody and dreamy textures, but the ending one-two of ‘Thy Will Be Done’ and ‘The Final Day’ fall a little flat, perhaps seeming more ‘straightforward’ compared to the other eight tracks here.
So, is ‘The Sheltering Sky’ a good record? That depends. As stated before, there are points where all the ideas don’t ‘click’ fully, and others where you are put so firmly on the back foot that it breaks any attachment you might have built up with the duo. This said, it is often emotive, mostly well constructed, and not at all self conscious. Not bad.
