Album Review: Destrage - "The Chosen One"

As soon as one attaches the appellation “experimental metal band” to a particular act, it causes a variety of facial reactions in the audience, most of which fall into a pair of categories: confusion or, perhaps more common, revulsion.

That rarest of all metal acts is the one that can proudly profess themselves as experimental and at the same time not alienate the core audience.  Destrage has managed to do this for four studio albums, and thus we are presented with their fifth effort “The Chosen One,” which promises more of same, even with the early press releases talking about adding more energy into the proceedings.

The resulting album provides an experience that is much different than “A Means to No End,” the band’s prior release and high-water mark.  Destrage has clearly taken pains to craft something different from that stellar record, rather than try to recreate it (or, by extension, “Are You Kidding Me? No,” from two album cycles ago,) and some of the value of the record will depend on what the listener to trying to find in Destrage.

The off-kilter beats and wild, winding guitar licks that so commonly issue forth from tandem Matteo Di Giola and Ralph Salati are still here, and their idiomatic juxtaposition of the artistically articulate and the boilerplate rhythm continues to work magic.  “About That,” the album’s best moment, is comprised almost solely of this very thing, and there are none who ply this trade better than this band.  The music staggers the mind with its flurry of passionate and parabolic riffs, but always stays rooted in the simplicity of a strummed chord.

What has always made Destrage’s particular blend work, and the vehicle that continues to propel them, is what can only be called a rubber band effect.  This act probes the edges and stretches conventional metal to its limit (within reason – there’s no self-important atmospheric wandering here, or dabbling with ‘post-metal,’ whatever the hell that’s supposed to be,) but always, always returns the listener to a massive, dramatic and accessible chorus that is ripe for chanting and singalongs.  We hear this throughout the duration of “The Chosen One,” notably for “Hey, Stranger!” and similar to the platitudes we levied above, none do this better than Destrage.

We’ve made it clear – there’s a lot to like on “The Chosen One,” and there’s a plethora of lessons that other bands could learn from here.  It needs to be clear before we go on that this is a very good record and worthy of all the accolades it will receive.

However…

One of Destrage’s most innovate and laudable talents over the course of their previous works is the ability to go out of bounds for the sake of achieving the sound they want.  In a metal genre overloaded with steroidal simpletons who lack creativity, no band showed us more conjectural musical possibilities than did Destrage.  Whether is was the serene but mournful chanting of “A Promise, A Debt,” the arena rock hooks of “The Flight,” the borderline trip-hop of “Blah Blah” or in particular, the mariachi cornucopia of “Are You Kidding Me? No,” there was always present the great influence of another genre.  “The Chosen One,” in short, lacks this same unbridled creativity.  If the band’s objective was to inject their proceedings with more straight-ahead vitriol, then they’ve accomplished that wholly, but at the cost of that which made them truly ‘experimental.’  Thus, as we said at the beginning, some of the value here will be reflective of why the listener journeyed here in the first place.

With all that said, “The Chosen One” is still a worthy addition to the catalogue, and marks the third time in six years that the band has released an album ranging between ‘great’ and ‘superior.’  Certainly, that puts them in the running for Best Active Metal Band On Earth, whenever the question comes up in conversation.