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DEAD DARK SLIDE
I Am Dead EP

Dead Games (2014)
Rating: 6/10

Dead Dark Slide are “the future of metal”, so says the press release for this Floridian bunch of industrial-influenced goth rockers formed in 2013. I Am Dead is the work of four members – vocalist / guitarist Ryan Michalski, bassist Jim Dead, drummer Ed Eats and keyboardist Kevin Killer – and offers us five tracks which should appeal to anyone who likes their metal music a little bit different, but extremely dark all the same.

For me, this is the sort of EP that may have worked far better if it had been released around 1992 (or even the late 90s into nu-metal banality) because it thrives on dark, gothic atmospherics, creeping soundtrack-styled dramatics and industrialised weirdness.

Fans of bands such as Ministry, Type O Negative and suffocating old school goth music will probably lap up the blood that drops from the cracks of this EP, but for me it’s a case of unintentional mimicry. It’s all well and good churning out these seemingly sinister chops, beats and grunge-coated gurgles which attempt to fuse early White Zombie with electronic, but the main issue I have is that two of my favourite bands come from this same very black hole.

The first is Swiss experimentalists Swamp Terrorists; a frightful duo who released a batch of avant-garde yet metallic records such as Grim-Stroke-Disease (1990) and Grow-Speed-Injection (1991). They combined samples not just from films, but other bands in their quest to join robotic heavy metal with creepier effects, and vocally the band incorporated an industrialised sneer. The second act and the main comparison which springs to mind is G.G.F.H. (Global Genocide Forget Heaven), a truly sinister duo of lunatics from Oakland, California who constructed some of the most horrifyingly atmospheric records that would put a majority of black metal bands to shame in their emanation of evil, featuring grim vocal slurps over a thick, smoggy sort of industrial-tinged sound that was also compromised of eerie twinkles, creepy trickles and macabre electronica.

Mainman Ryan Michalski and company must surely have heard of G.G.F.H, because as this relatively short EP lumbers along I’m reminded time and time again of the Californian weirdos who were indulging in this sort of seediness back in the early 90s, resulting in such nightmarish creations as Eclipse (1991) and the Reality EP (1992).

Dead Dark Slide bring the same sort of chilling, gluey, belching quicksand to the table, but they lack the true chilling qualities to compete with the big boys. Although the vocals are morbid grunts and snarls, and the music billows like some uncontrollable toxic fire, there is a tendency for this EP to drag, with opener ‘The Seas Are Black’ struggling to separate itself from the similarly turgid ‘Just Die’. Both tracks offer a swampy guitar sound which kind of labours as Michalski smirks and mocks with the contempt of a serial killer.

‘Your Blood Runs Red’ attempts further drones of horror, although this time the vocals are a touch clearer, ridden with angst and more suited to the nu-metal aesthetics of muscular vocabulary, even with the extra element of standard gothic keyboard moan.

‘Summer Never Ends’ continues the trend of the grating effect; the drone of the guitar and the angry vocals lack the blood-curdling atmospherics of the first two songs and again the track seems to labour, grinding along without any real impact or variety before ‘Watching You Bleed’ comes marching in with another stodgy riff. Thankfully the vocals have resorted to that darker vein, but it’s too little too late for a band that could probably reach a few fans if they were to support Marilyn Manson, but as it stands, from my point of view anyway, I Am Dead is a rather dull affair lacking an overall nastiness and imagination to compete in the shock horror stakes.

Neil Arnold

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