SikTh - Death of a Dead Day

For every band that carries on past their prime years to the point of self-parody, there's a barely noticeable, ultra-rare breed who split up at the height of their greatness. Out of those ultra-rare groups, there are even fewer who split up before they reach their full potential, in turn leaving the rest of us to wonder what could have been, all while raising horns to the one or two albums that they left us. This brings us to SikTh.

Hailing from the home of Napalm Death and Iron Maiden, SikTh blend the former's composure and progressive edge with the latter's aggressive shifting sound. I can still remember the moment when I first heard SikTh's Death of a Dead Day.  I was 15, and to that point the most intense music I'd been exposed to was Metallica.  When I heard the first track on the record "Bland Street Bloom", my world changed. SikTh sounds like a band of aliens, one from a universe where mathcore bands deliver poppy hooks, progressive bands don't get bogged down with proficiency, and death metal bands focused on clean, melodic songs instead of BPM. Sure, those things might happen occasionally, but how often do you hear it all on the same record?

After several EPs, in 2006 SikTh enjoyed high points in the form of a slot at Download Festival, a tour of Japan with Anthrax, Killswitch Engage, and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and finally a sold-out U.K. tour.  But SikTh's defining moment arrived on 6/6/06, the release date of Death of a Dead Day.  

If you've never heard SikTh before, the first two tracks, "Bland Street Bloom" and "Flogging the Horses," will practically punch you in the face. Your head will spin amidst the crazy tight and punishing riffs as they contort under relentless drumming. You'll start to wonder how Mikee Goodman didn't literally scream his intestines out in the studio.  Any musician will listen wide-eyed, as guitarists Pin and Dan Weller, and drummer Dan Foord beat the lives out of their instruments. It's difficult to listen critically the first time through, but I promise, this is one of those releases that gets better with time.  There is way too much to dissect on Death of a Dead Day for one to perceive and absorb the album's finer points in one go.

For such an aggressive band, SikTh never overwhelmed me.  Even the most SLAM moments on Death of a Dead Day, like the "Another Sinking Ship" and extremely technical "Summer Rain" sound organic.  Usually such crazy progressions would be written off as "riff salad", but SikTh manages to pull it off with fluid precision.  One thing's for sure, not a moment of Death of a Dead Day will sound like an imitation of something else. Well, anything that preceeded it.  SikTh's signature sound can be found in bits and pieces of practically every "djent" band in existence today (I'm talking to YOU Periphery).

Despite several dozen major compositional and stylistic shifts, Death of a Dead Day never stops being catchy.  SikTh is the kind of band that can get you sent to the emergency room after headbanging your way to whiplash .  A few cliff notes, "In This Light" sounds like it crawled off of a Tool record in the best of ways.  The spoken interlude "Mermaid Slur" brings light to the band's Nick Cage influence.  "Where Do We Fall" is outwardly driven by melody, and makes me wonder what would have been were SikTh to have made a try at radio success.  Well, the kind of success that would be possible if Gojira and Queensryche ever had a chance at the top 40.

The recent success of proggy bands like Mastodon and Baroness makes me wonder what kind of audience a new release from SikTh would find. Their break-up is a loss to the rest of us, but even if they never record another note, SikTh should be remembered as the best British metal band of the decade.  I realize that I spew niceties about records on here weekly, but in all seriousness, this record is important.  Any fan of heavy music NEEDS to hear Death of a Dead Day.  Hell, if you're not into metal at all, at least give it a shot, ya know, just to see just how catchy a song with more than 4 chords can be.

Below is the opening track off of Death of a Dead Day, "Bland Street Bloom".  It's a great track, but if you want a real look into what SikTh can do, I encourage you to listen to the rest of the record.  You won't regret it.