Diesomnia – Pray for the Flood (EP)
Release Date: 16th June 2023
Label: Self-Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Thrash-inspired Heavy Metal.
FFO: Sepultura, Lamb of God, Cannibal Corpse.
Review By: Andy Spoon
Ohio-based artists Diesomnia’s 2023 release Pray for the Flood is the band’s pandemic-era EP, which had been sidelined because of the logistics of the global virus. The band is finally ready to set the album loose on their fans in the Death-Thrash-Heavy community. Taking influences from Thrash acts like Megadeth and Slayer, and combining them with influences from the Death Metal scene, such as Cannibal Corpse, it’s clear that Diesomnia’s most recent offering is a reflection of some signature sounds in each of the genres.
The immediate thing that listeners will notice is the rhythm guitars and the harsh vocals. Vocalist Chad Cochran’s gristle and gurgle is an excellent death-thrash blend that lends itself well to the nature of the project, which doesn’t lean too-hard into one particular style or the other. Cochran’s style is fairly uniform, which means that it’s probably not hard to discern his voice across several songs, something that is useful for style recognition in the death or thrash scenes. While some might disagree, I believe that having something immediately unique or discernable (at least within a few bars) is necessary to having success as a metal band.
The second highly-discernable part is the guitars. For some reason, they reminded me of Slipknot’s signature sound, whether that be a combination of amps or effects and tuning. The riffs and chugging are courtesy of Sean O’Bryan and Chris Yake, whose sounds seem to mesh well together on each track. I wasn’t particularly impressed with anything, but I found that the sound was stylized to add to the “signature sound” that I had mentioned before. I think that I would have enjoyed a little more leads and melody (however short) to break up the music a little more.
I immediately loved the first couple of tracks, which seemed to lead heavily into the death/thrash influences. I thought that the whole album might be something akin to Schizophrenia or Troops of Doom. Unfortunately, it seemed to taper off into a blend of other styles, which disappointed me. I think that Diesomnia really should be a death/thrash band, as their entry tracks Pray for the Flood, and No Truth are crushing and totally nuts, especially in the drums section. The pace and grit are uplifting and attention-grabbing.
Later on the EP, however, I started to feel the album settle into slower, more groove/breakdown-based riffs which disappointed me, as I really just wanted the onslaught of the speedy, thrashy tracks to continue. I started feeling like it might have been a Lamb of God album, which is not a bad thing, just a disappointing deviation from the first couple of tracks, which really grabbed my attention. That being said, Diesomnia isn’t trying to be a pure death-thrash band, something that reviewers like me need to remember as we make our judgments. They are forging a path which is largely-based on their own ideas of the sound they want to generate.
I think that fans of bands like Slipknot, Lamb of God, and even some deathcore bands, like Whitechapel will enjoy the angsty, angry tone of Pray for the Flood, which ought to grab crossover fans with some of the intensity and familiar content. While I wish that the band would explore the death-thrash genre more, I think that they fill a good gap between death metal listeners and Heavy Metal fans, which is a fabulous way to expose listeners to either genre if they are so-pigeonholed, that they don’t spend time dabbling in the other.
(3 / 5)
