Dr. Living Dead!
Cosmic Conqueror
Century Media Records
2017
Dr Living Dead! are a Swedish quarter that performs a sort of crossover thrash, that’s nerdy and sci/fi movie inspired. Their closest musical cousins would be Municipal Waste and Gama Bomb, while fellow Swedes FKU, who are also “movie/horror” inspired are not a million mile away, but much closer to my tastes.
The main thing that turns me off in these guys is the generic guitar riffs and the over the top love em or hate them vocals of their new singer since the last album that have me siding with the haters, I’m afraid to report. Their previous vocalist that was more reasonable with his vocals and made things sound more “heavy” was much better in my humble opinion. At times they sound like a bad copy of Suicidal Tendencies on acid, minus anything “interesting”. It’s not as if they have changed so much… but the cleaning up of the sound and the over the top vocal histrionics of their new guy, make them not my cup of tea at all.
A couple of tracks that sound a bit more like taking cues from pre-shit Slayer (ie the 5 first albums) ie “The Summoning” and the title track “Cosmic Conqueror” I didn’t mind… as well as the short soft instrumental “Into the Eye” and the peculiar “Moment of Clarity” that’s rather modest before going apeshit towards the end. Very uneven and very love it or hate it band/album.
The main thing that turns me off in these guys is the generic guitar riffs and the over the top love em or hate them vocals of their new singer since the last album that have me siding with the haters, I’m afraid to report. Their previous vocalist that was more reasonable with his vocals and made things sound more “heavy” was much better in my humble opinion. At times they sound like a bad copy of Suicidal Tendencies on acid, minus anything “interesting”. It’s not as if they have changed so much… but the cleaning up of the sound and the over the top vocal histrionics of their new guy, make them not my cup of tea at all.
A couple of tracks that sound a bit more like taking cues from pre-shit Slayer (ie the 5 first albums) ie “The Summoning” and the title track “Cosmic Conqueror” I didn’t mind… as well as the short soft instrumental “Into the Eye” and the peculiar “Moment of Clarity” that’s rather modest before going apeshit towards the end. Very uneven and very love it or hate it band/album.