Dark Days Fall - Strain - Song Review - Dark Ambient Progressive Metal from Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Today I am writing about a promising dark ambient progressive rock/metal band, Dark Days Fall, from Louisville, Kentucky, USA, with, Strain, the debut single of the band released in 2021.
Dark Days Fall - Strain (OFFICIAL GUITAR PLAYTHROUGH)
Filmography/Photography: Million30 Productions
First and foremost, Strain deserves appreciation for its established, well-produced and polished modern sound above everything else, giving life to a strong concept with the necessary quality in its musical origins, blending progressive, ambient, grunge, and post-rock origins with sludge metal influences. The band shows potential with the vision in their work.
The musical focus has cinematic dark vibes in the theme with an easy listening level of progressive metal complexity both in their instrumentation and composition. Once I finished watching the guitar playthrough video, realized that the song was still exciting to listen to without vocals. In this way, the song stands out with its dark captivating ambiance and delicious guitar tones, the cinematic sections keeping your attention alive all the way to the end. In this way, the song reminded me of Tool and Gojira from time to time.
Technically the song has a tasty modern metal focus, Dark Days Fall sound design and production distinguishing it from others. Although Strain has mainstream qualities, maybe even getting as commercial as Linkin Park, the dark energy was impressive enough for me to remind me of my dark progressive metal king, Ihsahn.
Lastly, the vocals play totally separate role from everything, adding another color to Dark Days Fall's origins. In this way, the musical direction has influences from Arch Enemy with the melodic metal style of the female vocalist, 30 Seconds To Mars with its commercial quality, and TesseracT with the freedom level in the vocal style.
On the other side of the coin, I have to admit that I am unsure about the Dark Days Fall concept in general, even though they have definable qualities in their work. The band doesn't have the art direction they need, rather looks like any other metal band that still confuses me.
Also, I believe the vocal parts has the least originality in their creation, wasn't really adding what was missing to this song. The guitar playthrough video proves many points about the band's vision, concept, and quality, sounds much more interesting than the version with vocals. It was an unusual experience listening to the same song without vocals and falling in love with it only afterwards.
When I put all these into account, I'd like to say that I had a great time listening to Strain by Dark Days Fall. Solid modern grungy rock/metal sound, blending Tool's understanding of progressive music with Gojira's heaviness, Ihsahn's darkness, and Linkin Park's production. Strongly Recommended Metal. Thanks for reading.
DARK DAYS FALL on the WEB
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