Dante

A long six years ago, these Australians impressed your reviewer with their take on deathcore, involving plenty of tech-death influence as well as an atmospheric touch to make their style intense and involving even for those who dislike the (sub)genre. And now they’re back, no longer backed by Unique Leader but going it alone for their third full-length album, showing off their strengths and still carrying some of the weaknesses from before. Xenobiotic stick close enough to the deathcore genre for it not to be unfair to avoid calling them tech-death, even though there are definitely times where the band dip deep into that genre, yet the general formula (and of course, copious breakdowns) make Dante firmly an album of that category.

The biggest issues here, again, come with the concept-album strappings, not least manifesting in some downright boring spoken narration on the likes of Dante I: Saviour that rather spoils the rumbling energy of the song. Otherwise, it uses the setting well (especially with the snarled “abandon all hope!” and breakdown) to start the album off steadily, if perhaps a little slower than you’d have expected. The following Cardinal Sin provides more speed and aggression, sticking closer to the deathcore formula at first with a technical breakdown around a minute in that shows off their technical skills, the track then progressing to a more Meshuggah-esque groove beatdown contrasted with melodic ambience.

The worst depiction of the band’s skills on the album is Three Heads, Five Eyes which takes almost a whole minute of narration before starting a sort of post-metal atmospheric groove to act as an interlude, yet at just the third track on the album is far too early to be necessary. Far better are the galloping heaviness of The Saddest State of a Man and the following The Slave State, intense and punishing in the ways that other pieces aren’t – especially with the latter, a solid choice for a single that you can imagine causing plenty of pit carnage with live outings! And in fairness to the band, pieces nearby such as Dante II: Pariah and Rulers In the Rot show that Xenobiotic are capable of mixing the kind of heavy-handed concept album storytelling with entertaining deathcore stomp, as well as atmospheric heft, even though they can feel a little samey at this point.

Where Dante is also lacking, sadly, is in the sort of consistency that gives such songs repeatedly through the album. For every intense and heavy pounder like Harlequin, there seems to be a Dante III: Traitor that saps the energy back down – and that example is a particular disappointment, coming at the end of the album and being nine minutes long yet feeling dominated by spoken word sections which keep popping up, more than spoiling the near-symphonic grandeur of the deathcore surrounding. Perhaps that’s more an issue of personal taste than anything really wrong, yet it’s hard not to feel like the band are sidestepping their strengths rather than focusing on them, and to consider this a step down from Mordrake as a result.