UMUR
"Dorval" is the debut and sole full-length studio album by Danish death metal act Detest. The album was released in February 1994 by Progress Red Labels. Detest was one of the most hyped Danish death metal acts in the early nineties because of the "DeathBreed (1992)" cassette demo tape. In addition to touring activities, "DeathBreed" was sold in quite a large number of copies and therefore Detest was already a pretty well known act in the Danish underground before the release of "Dorval".
"Dorval" is a sci-fi themed concept death metal album. The music on the album pretty standard old school death metal though. Mostly influenced by the early and not too melodic Swedish death metal style. The growls are deep and mostly indecipherable and the songs generally don´t stand out much from each other. It´s obvious the band have put great effort into building the concept, but the songs simply aren´t varied enough to keep the listener entertained for 56:58 minutes. This is also in large part due to the sub-par sound production, which does little to bring out the best in the songs.
When that is said "Dorval" isn´t as such a bad album. The expectations to how it would sound were just so big in those days and the album didn´t really live up to those expectations. Listening to "Dorval" today it´s still a pretty standard death metal album and I´d say a 2.5 - 3 star rating is warranted.