THIS REVIEW DIED BY MY HAND ON JANUARY 29, 2004

DEATH DU JOUR
GAMASHINOCH
SELF-RELEASED, 2003
 
Here we go again with the brutal death metal.  You know the drill: angry music aimed at mentally, physically (in the pit sense, at least) and aurally fucking you up.  Gamashinoch is representative of the genre, as the music is aggressive and downtuned, a maelström of music meant for the arms and legs to flail about while slam-dancing.  The vocals are sufficiently brutal, the arrangements are effective enough to directly affect you and your spine and the production's crisp enough and loud enough to round out the body and 'cause the earth to shake.  It's enough to pass as a good death metal album, and I enjoy Gamashinoch to a point.
 
What I can't get over, though, is the boring and not-too-warm (in a musical sense, you fag) nature of Gamashinoch.  The production, while very good, sounds mechanical in a way.  The drum machine isn't very creatively programmed, for instance.  I'm also not one for the echo effect that the vocals were treated with.  I find there are too many of these computer-aided effects that don't give a good impression of how brutal the band really is.  It's one thing to whip out the effects pedal and throw up a few Cubase effects while stroking the musical schlong (i.e. the guitar, you perv), but it doesn't give an accurate impression on how the band sounds in a live setting.  I'm nitpicking, sure, but I'm just giving my honest opinion here.  Long story short, me no likey overproduction in death metal.  It bad.
 
This is Death du Jour's debut EP, by the way.  It's amazingly strong for a first demo and everything about it suggests greatness.  If these guys don't get signed by the time I'm finished taking a piss there is no hope for the extreme metal scene.  I'm serious about this.
 
DEATH DU JOUR
Varnankatu 4m156
20320 Turku
FINLAND
http://www.deathdujour.net/
[email protected]