D_Drive – Dynamotive
Release Date: 26th August 2022
Label: Marshall Records
Pre-Order
Genre: Japanese Instrumental Power Metal, Progressive Instrumental Metal.
FFO: Joe Satriani, Asterism, Galneryus.
Review By: Andy Spoon
Japanese instrumental metal project D_Drive releases their 6th Full-length album in August this year, with intentions to get back into the full-time metal scene since the issues regarding most bands’ ability to tour after the pandemic. Drawing on influences from tragedy, regrowth, and the duality of life, D_Drive’s most recent album is crafted, as always, in such a way hoping to avoid the necessity of lyrics to convey their message, leaning of flow and tonality as their primary media. For the most part, it is successful in conveying the “duality” aspect of the band’s intended message, but the album has some elements that are holistically tired, or even fall flat, in places.
At its very beginning, it’s clear to the listener that the album is going to be a shredder’s paradise. There is no doubt that these guys have the chops to run with the crowd in the power metal scene. Being an instrumental band only, though, they have quite a bit of competition insofar as talented shredders go, so something new and fresh needs to be apparent for D_Drive to really strike a chord with audiences in the 2020s. Naturally, I intently listened for anything that would help give these guys an edge in the market when Dynamotive is, but I was left wishing for more after a few listens.
It’s fairly clear that their sound is heavily-influenced by guitar gods like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, as the dual lead guitar is generally the driving voice of the entire melody. The alternative harmonies are often perfectly-timed to give a killer left/right mix balance between guitar lines. This is something that, if you watch the music videos, is highly-impressive to watch. One of the band’s main “fortes” is the live show, which can make the power of the music just a little bit more impressive. The band is also shored-up by brand sponsorship from Boss and Roland, which have appeared to have helped foot the bill for some of their video production, or at least, gives the appearance to.
One of the issues I noticed is that D_Drive sometimes employs triggered or electronic drums, which once I saw, I couldn’t “unsee”. There was so-little variation of the drum tones that I was actually a little bit disappointed, as it felt sterile and programmed at times, something that just seems out of place for a band who has placed such an emphasis on the virtuosity of the musicians. As a drummer myself, I think that I might be extra-sensitive to the lack of tonal variation in triggered drums, but it has absolutely killed albums for me in the past. It doesn’t “kill” anything here, as the drums are mastered well (typical with triggered drums), but it leaves me feeling like there is something slightly off with the drum section, at least from a purely tonal perspective at several places on the album.
The recording production is great, with no actual “holes” that I would complain about in the mixdown or the mastering. I think that it’s something that has just the right amount of production value to be featured anywhere, which, as you might be able to see, is something that I am going to venture into slightly here. As an instrumental band, I think that one of their main issues is having an audience who wants to follow the purported message (duality of life) is going to require some deep searching, as I don’t personally feel that they have done enough to differentiate each necessary component to the “duality” for listeners.
In essence, there are two types of music on the album: Jam band/southern-rock-influenced music that sounds like it would be the background music for a sports game, clearly influenced by Van Halen and Satriani, and then heavier, modern-metal-influenced tracks with darker, more salient tones. If the aforementioned duality is there, I could extrapolate that the dual-meaning would become apparent between the Satriani/Van Halen US-rock (Runaway Boy,Get Away, and Wings) and the Dream Theater-esque progressive tracks (Be Yourself, Red Light, Green Light, Thumbs Up, I Remember The Town, U_Me, and Breakout). Specifically, there are a couple of tracks (Wings, Breakout) that are more of a typical, speedy Japanese Power Metal sound that I would have preferred to hear more of.
The biggest thing that is plain in Dynamotive is that it is an improvement over their 2019 album MAXIMUM IMPACT, at least in my opinion, which was generally less-diverse than Dynamotive in some ways. MAXIMUM IMPACT laid heavier into the Satriani-style rock, which is honestly a little haggard in the 2020s, but also had some more progressive, moodier, or slower tracks that might have brought some additional variation to the new album. But hey, that’s not “duality”, is it? I suppose that we couldn’t ask for too much variation on an album that specifically-states it’s about two distinct things and had two distinct styles of song. That being said, I’m not holding it against them in this review. The improvement in listenability is notable, something that I hope might come forward in future releases. I’d very much like to see collaborations with other artists, as well as more of the power metal, which they seemed to have achieved on a couple of tracks here. Overall, I was impressed that D_Drive has grown with each new release. They haven’t lost their signature sound, for sure, but there are specific elements that I am loath to keep hearing without something “more” that I don’t believe that D_Drive has yet achieved. Dynamotive is easy to headbang to and dream of converting into Guitar Hero tracks, but I find it a difficult listen to appreciate from an artistic standpoint, as there is more “shredding” than substance on a release that seemed to have promised more substance. 
(2.5 / 5)
