DETEST — Dorval (review)

DETEST — Dorval album cover Album · 1994 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Dorval" is the debut full-length studio album by Danish death metal act Detest. The album was released through Progress Red Labels in February 1994. 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 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. Predominantly played at a heavy groove laden mid-pace. The growls are deep but lead vocalist Peter Jørgensen can also sing slightly higher pitched aggressive vocals. It´s obvious the band have put great effort and care into building the concept, but at 56:58 minutes "Dorval" is maybe a bit too long for its own good, despite the band trying to create variation by incorporating atmospheric sections like the acoustic guitar/flute interlude track "Dorval (Revenging Hour)" or by laying down some well played leads.

While the material is overall effective and powerful old school death metal and the sci-fi concept definitely provides the music with something a little extra, the sub-par sound production unfortunately does little to bring out the best in the compositions. In fact the poor sounding production does exactly the opposite, resulting in even making tracks which are obviously good compositions sound like demos. I´m afraid I´m not at all surprised that "Dorval" was recorded at Borsing Recording, Aarhus, Denmark and produced by Jan Borsing, which is the studio and the producer responsible for quite a few bad sounding contemporary Danish death metal albums ("Four Depressive Seasons" by Illdisposed is another example).

When that is said "Dorval" isn´t as such a bad album. After releasing what is arguably one of the best Danish death metal demos, the expectations to how "Dorval" would sound were just so much bigger than what the band managed to produce. The sound production ruins what on many other parameters is a quality death metal release. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.
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