DOGBANE – Idylls of Woe

Many Rock fans like to stick to their golden rule that the old music was the stuff and the new music is mediocre, bad, cheesy – the list goes on. But the people who do like to discover new things have a bit different rules to abide by. One of them could be something like this: There are decent new bands out there too – you just need to know where to seek. Because if someone’s city is full of bands that indeed make mediocre music, that doesn’t matter that the rest of the world is just like that. Some of these bands just need to be discovered, although they need to be carefully picked from the multitude of other bands that represent little to no quality or blatantly copy other bands’ music. One of those rising bands is a North Carolina based project called Dogbane and they recently released their third album titled Idylls of Woe.

One positive thing about the music on this album is that there is no striking similarity to any other Metal band. Of course, it’s rather easy to tell that the guys at Dogbane surely do like to chill to Pantera, Dio and Black Label Society, but they by no means sound like a band that could be described as Pantera wannabees. Some of the new bands come up with music that is really catchy, powerful and generally good, but it will not impress anyone who knows anything about music in general – because it’s just a conglomerate of what has already been played by various other bands. Or bands the members of love Motörhead so much their singer sounds like he could be Lemmy. That might be a good way to become a bit recognized within the local scene, but surely it is not the way to the top if one wants to rock’n’roll, like AC/DC would say.
With Dogbane, that is fortunately not the case. These guys do have their own style and that is not a very common thing to find among the present day bands. Even if the songs on Idylls of Woe don’t make the listener move straight away, and might even come across as rather boring initially (perhaps that does depend on the listener’s mood!), they are something new. The second track, titled “Devil’s Trampling Ground” is a very good example: one could say it sounds like a mix of Pantera and Zakk Wylde and friends, with a hint of Deep Purple Mk2 and Black Sabbath from the Sabotage era, but these are just influences – the band does not rip off any other artist and praise be upon them for that.

Every song on Idylls of Woe has that mysterious depth to it that makes it simply captivating – because it literally drags the listener into the vortex of groove until the last composition finishes. This album only has 8 songs on it and it barely exceeds half an hour, but that is enough. There are some good tracks on it, like “Riddle of Steel” which, despite the not particularly impressive bass intro has some amazing bass fills in it later on, so fans of the four strings will not be disappointed. There are some decent solos on the album – see “Blood in the Snow” – and the use of pinch harmonics only adds up the Heavy Metal coolness to the overall sound. Also, it is quite funny how the final composition is the only one that might make the listener get into the Metal frenzy, simply because of its catchiness.

Even if it doesn’t sound amazing at first, Idylls of Woe is definitely worth checking out. It may not seem very exciting at first, but if some of the aforementioned facts are taken into consideration, like that the guys at Dogsbane don’t try to blatantly copy other artists’ styles and have their own unique sound, they really do deserve some exposure. Because it’s not a bunch of wannabees, it’s a bunch of artists who have decided to make something new and they keep at it. That matters as much as the music itself. May the world find out about Dogbane sooner than we expect!