D.A.M is an experimental death metal act hailing from Brazil, a band attempting to bridge the gap between straight-ahead melodic death metal and music from a higher plane. They recently released an EP, “Premonitions…” which promises to pool many sources in order to create a new sound and depth of musical character.
What we have here with “Premonitions…” is a tale of two halves. In the first, beginning with the leading title track, we see D.A.M taking on as many different sounds and trying together as much as they conceivably can in a ten-minute run that barrels back and forth from progressive to death to thrash and back across the blasted landscape just as quickly. It’s a disparate listening experience because the bride material does not create smooth seams – the musicianship of D.A.M isn’t in question, but their composition isn’t seamless, with jagged edges slammed together.
Yet, the other half of “Premonitions…” is where D.A.M throws in and becomes simply a melodic death metal band in the vein of early of Children of Bodom, and this side of their gimmick works with substantially greater success. Their riffs are crisp and memorable, their beats on points and consistent, and the connecting tissue of the songs is strong and holds fast, event through the seven-minute duration of a song like “The Cage.”
So what we’re left with here is a six-song EP teaser of a potentially great idea, but that potential is almost entirely based on whichever path D.A.M decides to pursue. It’s a strange phenomenon when a band is actually better when they try to do a little less, but that’s irrefutably the case with “Premonitions…” Go into this knowing that there is good material here, but perhaps not uniform material.
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