REVIEW: Dark Divine's "Deadly Fun" via Thriller

Last week and bleeding into the week after I wrote a stream of reviews on some “Octaine-core,” that is metalcore bands that lean toward the lamer side of alternative rock. This week I checked out Dark Divine on a mutual’s recommendation and didn’t know what to expect but found this to lean toward those genres as well. I will say, however, that in Deadly Fun there is an element of real passion and heart that I think is missing from a lot of the larger sized artists in the genre right now.

While this is very radio rock it also manages to avoid a lot of the sins of the genre and Dark Divine even has some real, quality moments to them on their debut. The anticipation of the breakdown to “Drown” is a really nice genre moment and the hook on “Dancing Dead” is quite strong. They also, unlike a lot of their predecessor’s modern music, actually sell me on the things they’re going through. On “Cold” we’re told of a dying relationship and it doesn’t feel at all manufactured, there’s real pain here. The passion, anger and sadness also comes off on “Moving On,” a song that may be a metalcore highlight of the year for me.


Of course, even on the best modern metalcore records, there are moments that make a lot of these tracks blend into the greater movement as a whole. The title track is so close to being something special in a metal song about paranormal investigation but it’s main lyric just makes it come off as sounding like it's by a certain other band that fans are swooning over right now. To discern how hard it is for me personally to tell a lot of these apart as well, I fully believed, until writing this, that Bryan Kuznitz and Brian Burkheiser were the same person, as the former shows up here as a feature. None of that is helped by the fact that vocalists in this genre all sing with the exact same inflection.


The games they play are all just deadly fun


Compare it to other, similar records, and I walk away from Deadly Fun satisfied. This won’t show up on a year end list or anything but offers a few songs I’ll be spinning for a few months at least. I bought a car this weekend and a part of me thinks maybe driving makes me like these bands just a smidge more.


I liked this record


Favorite tracks:

  1. Deadly Fun
  2. Drown
  3. Cold
  4. Terrifier
  5. Dancing Dead
  6. Paper Crown [feat. Bryan Kuznitz of Fame on Fire]
  7. Hive Mind
  8. Grave Digger
  9. Moving On
  10. The Reaper

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