Divine Hersey - Bringer of Plagues

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I had great hopes for this album and this group. When I first heard of Divine Heresy I had great expectations just from hearing that the line up included Dino and Tim. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Bleed the Fifth to see just how Dino was planning to throw the F.U. back in Fear Factory’s face. I knew there would be a lot of aggression and technicality, I mean how couldn’t there be? Dino and Tim—that says it all. I really did enjoy Bleed the Fifth. I can comfortably say that one could listen to the album from beginning to end—enjoying everything track obviously with a select few favourites. (Where the hell did “Closure” come from? Shinedown meets Fear Factory?) Sometimes I really want to know what goes on in some of these bands heads when they throw that one soft track in the album. Anyway, I’m not a hater; the album was a solid effort for the group’s first studio album—which brings us to Bringer of Plagues. Now BoP you can’t listen to in it’s entirety without getting bored—dare I say you will be bored the entire album. I was looking for some progression, but in this case it seems that Divine Heresy have lost their way. WTF. I had to put on Bleed the Fifth just to keep me from choke slamming my computer. Maybe there’s still hope, we have some very talented musicians here. I’ll be awaiting the third studio album for them to recover from this disaster. Now here’s a slight list of how I came to my conclusion.

There are only two songs that do not contain clean vocals—Monolithic Doomsday Devices, and Letter To Mother. Since I am a huge fan of brutal work, I closely scrutinized these tracks specifically. The first Monolithic has some good breakdowns and the drums and riffs obviously are good and in sync but that’s expected—but nothing standout here. I enjoyed the intro to Letter. I said to myself, wow, some melody!! I actually really enjoyed the intro, but that’s not very good when that’s all you’re talking about on an 11 track album. It’s a good song though and I’d even say my favourite of the album in light of the fact that nothing else really stood out.

I am not against clean vocals but goddamnit they better be catchy because we true metal heads get bored very easy because we’ve listened to so much in this genre—leave the clean vocal work to Trivium because they know how to make it catchy.

Typically we can expect the album’s title track to standout, especially when it’s preceded by a 1:07 ambient teaser, but it just doesn’t offer anything special, and that’s pretty much the entire album.

Well that just about wraps it up. Not worth the purchase, and certainly don’t begin your journey of Divine Heresy with this album. Do yourself a favour and pick up Bleed the Fifth and wait for a review of the third studio album 2 years from now prior to purchase.

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