Dieuponaday from Edmonton, Canada recently released their album From Where I Draw My Strength and it’s a fun romp that crosses the boundaries between core and metal with hints of a variety of subgenres mixed in.
The first track, Amelioration hits hard with a very modern metal intro interrupted by the core vocals. The cleans harmonize well with the melodic guitars. For me, core is a really hit and miss genre, the combination of cleans and growls have to be done just so and Dieuponaday, while having not mastered this technique are going in the right direction. Impel the Flood has great cleans like most of the album, but the growls lean a bit too much into hardcore for me.
The guitar work and the solos are well written and well placed, and it’s easy to discern between the myriad of influences these musicians take from. A little bit of death metal, a little bit of heavy metal all wrapped up in a speedy metalcore package with some angsty lyrics like on Calcine. The guitar tone in the closing solo on Disavow took me by surprise and makes it hard to stick Dieuponaday exclusively into the core genre. Where most core bands would just end with an anti climatic breakdown, these guys went in a different direction.
I can appreciate some jumping through genres and being kept on my toes (ears?) instead of having to listen to an album with no variation. So, good on Dieuponaday for the track selection that encourages active listening. This theme keeps up with The Message Reads, it’s got some punk tinges and some downtempo bits.
There is a lot of energy, I will give them that. Enough that I would check them out live if not just to watch people go mental in the pit. The gang vocals on The Regency are very reminiscent of a hardcore/thrash song, which while not exactly up my alley in terms of genres, it’s short enough that it doesn’t break the album for me.
Sagacity has really nice melodic parts and solos but he vocals throw me off completely along with the breakdowns. Exculpate returns to the melodic metal that was present on the beginning of the album still keeping a bit of the hardcore tones,
Closing the album are Awaken and Eidolon, both solid face punching tracks that gently caress the line between core and modern metal. While there is a little to be desired with the how the growls are executed, they seem a bit strained, but overall the power is there with the clarity and enunciation that adds to the vocal quality.
Overall, the combination of core elements, death metal vocals and modern melodic riffs mesh really well, at some points the album seemed to be veering off in a random direction, but all in all it’s rather cohesive.
FFO: Darkest Hour, Haste the Day, Lamb of God, Metallica, Shadows Fall
Favourite Track: Disavow
Label: Independent
Release Date: June 1, 2019
