Originally written by Tyler Wagnon.
At one time or another for various publications I’ve reviewed Dead to Fall’s previous three full-lengths so I figured I’d go ahead and finish the discography. The first full-length Everything I Touch Falls to Pieces came out in 2002 just as metalcore was becoming commercially viable. Even though I generally enjoyed the sound and DTF was one of the more popular acts at that time, I wasn’t entirely impressed with the album aside from two or three tracks. With 2004’s Villainy and Virtue and 2006’s The Phoenix Throne the band took steps in the right direction adding more metal elements to their sound and shoring up their songwriting in general. Despite the improvements the band still left a lot to be desired in the originality department because adding more deathly vocals and Swede melodies certainly had been done numerous times before.
So here is Are You Serious? the band’s fourth and final release (the band broke up in April this year) and once again the band has made adjustments in their sound and personnel that benefit the band, but they aren’t the most original moves. This time around the band offers a more technical slant to their sound including Ion Dissonance-esque breakdowns that are absolutely corrosive. Also, in tracks like “Loch Ness” and “Brainmelter” the riffing gives off a vaguely Mastodon-ish vibe with noodly accents thrown in.
Dead to Fall has always struggled to keep a stable lineup, which accounts for their ever-changing approach to metal, but to me that instability and the fact that their changes often tended to be toward newer trends in the genre always left a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, Are You Serious? is easily the band’s heaviest and most diverse album, but it’s not the most original thing in the world. And now that the band’s lineup issues have finally done them in for good, it is really hard to recommend this album to anyone unless they REALLY need another Dead To Fall album.
