By Monk
In the shadow of the stones beneath a boiling crimson sky he speaks the thousand names of the eldest god of all. The arcane, guttural sounds eat away the flesh of his mouth with each profane syllable pronounced. Blood pours from his disintegrating lips but he never falters in his invocation. This is his only purpose, all he was ever made to be, the Caller of the Divine. He weeps with joy as the clouds are rent above him; his exposed teeth and tattered tongue forming the final words. Ichor rains down on his upturned face and his eyes explode as he gazes upon the convulsing, churning magnitude of God – the world eating legion of tentacles and teeth, the malice beyond all understanding. Blinded, broken and fulfilled he falls to his knees, the words of the Red Verse, the multitudinous names of the Almighty have been spoken…
More than 20 years into their career, Edinburgh’s Dog Tired have taken a bold step forward with this declarative fifth album, one which speaks with many musical tongues but does with a clarity of understanding that does not require a universal translator to make its intentions clear, and that is to deliver a feast of hardcore-infused progressively metallic riffs that grab you by the balls and don’t let go for the duration of this confident and cohesive collection of ten anthemic ‘bangers.
In what has become the traditional metal method, opener ‘Fracture’ slowly builds the atmosphere, the main riff merely hinting at the crushing impact that is to come, before Chris Thomson’s vocals explode from the speakers, perfectly complementing both the fiercesome rhythm and the understated harmony and melody that also manages to pervade this entire opus in a way in which so many bands at the more “brutalistic” end of the metal mien don’t seem able to achieve.
‘Of Severed Gods’ possesses more crunch than a tonne of honeycomb, while ‘The Wall’ is just a concrete solid lesson in how to build massive riffs combined with memorable melodies, searing lead breaks with tsunami-inducing percussive beatdowns. I’m not going to go through a track-by-track analysis of the rest of the album, as I think you get the picture by now. What I will say is that the album does not relent in the second half: in fact, if anything, it becomes even denser, heaven, evoking a sense of claustrophobia on the likes of ‘It Awaits’ and ‘Pillars Of Phobos’ which is both terrifying and enervating in equal measure.
‘The Red Verse’ is a towering behemoth of an album, multitudinous (sic) in every aspect of its delivery. This is a band who definitely don’t live up to their name. In fact, there is plenty of life left in these mongrels, who have managed to breed a litter of high quality, incisively insistent collection of tunes which I for one will continue to rinse for quite some time to come… maybe even as far as into the future as the time for compiling our end of year album lists, on which this is already an extremely strong contender…
- ‘The Red Verse‘ is out now.
- Dog Tired play the Coalville Metal Invasion tomorrow (Friday 7 July), the Network in Sheffield on Saturday (8 July) and Trillians in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne on Sunday (9 July).
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.