Dino Cazares packed the debut CD by Divine Heresy with guest stars -- members of Static-X, Dimmu Borgir, Soulfly, and Machine Head all showed up to the party. This time around, the band is a stripped-down unit with nobody else lending a hand, and Bringer of Plagues is a better album for it. Of course, there are other changes, too; original vocalist Tommy Cummings was fired after a very public fight in April 2008, and there's a new bassist, Joe Payne, making his studio debut with the band. But new vocalist Travis Neal is a real find, switching back and forth between ultra-harsh death growls and barks and a high, clean, almost crooning vocal style on the choruses. That may not sound all that unique, but after Cummings' muscle-headed, bare-bones delivery, it's a welcome changeup. And guitarist Cazares and drummer Tim Yeung are still the band's real stars. Cazares' riffs are much more brutal than the ones he wrote with industrial-metal stars Fear Factory, while Yeung's work is as lightning-fast and relentless as anything he played with more traditional death metal acts Hate Eternal, Decrepit Birth, and Vital Remains. For the most part, this is a head-down, hair-pinwheeling death metal album, with melody mostly an afterthought (the chorus of "Redefine" seems to belong to a whole different song, and the almost power metal intro section of "Letter to Mother" is equally surprising in context). The production, by Machine Head guitarist Logan Mader, is ultra-heavy, and the performances are ferocious without seeming overly cleaned-up. If they can keep their lineup steady, Divine Heresy might be onto something.
© Phil Freeman /TiVo