Album review – Dyst’s “Judges & Butchers”

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Rogue Mag Music - Album review - Dyst's "Judges & Butchers"

So they’re pumping metalcore out of Bergen, Norway these days, eh? My, how standards have slipped! I mean, this album’s production is incomparably better than those from the heyday of black metal, and the musicianship is arguably as good or better, but the Norwegian black metal bands that spawned in Bergen 20-25 years ago had something Dyst, and metalcore in general, does not: sincerity and balls.

The most telling criticism I have of this album is that, having listened all the way through, twice, I can’t recall one riff, vocal pattern, or lyric. The reason I had to give it a second spin is because my brain must have blocked it out the first time, thinking it was doing me a favour. I never judge an album by it’s genre, but this is metalcore at its most generic; uninspired riffing, monotonal shouting with cringeworthy backing harmonies, and a whole load of melodic wankery that never has the testicular fortitude to evolve into a face-melting solo.


Dyst formed in 2008, and have been plugging away in the underground, honing their songs before bringing them into the studio for their debut. I respect that they didn’t just form a band and rush into a studio with daddy’s credit card, but, polished though it may be, they have failed to create a unique sound to set them apart from the plethora of garbage out there vying for attention. Although ‘Renewed’ is the only song that stands out as particularly bad, it’s the safe, packaged, lamestream “meh” factor that kills this album. Musically, it’s more energetic and complex than standard mallcore, but it is banal nonetheless.

Having said all that, the songs ‘Black Waves’ and ‘Calm The Storm’ are something of a redeeming feature. The first half of the former is uninteresting, but finishes strongly with howling, wave-like guitars. It’s nothing special, but at least it’s different. The latter has driving bass, pounding drums, a catchy vocal hook, and, crucially, doesn’t require you to take a drill to your prefrontal cortex in order to enjoy it. These are the only songs on the album that at no point descend into a clichéd homage to the genre, demonstrating that there is, in fact, a glimmer of musical merit buried within these young guys. If they abandoned their adoring emulation of testosterone-deficient murderers of music, they could potentially create something worth listening to.

Ultimately, ‘Judges and Butchers’ is just another collection of songs for the shitheap of metalcore, popular with teenagers who claim to love metal, but don’t really know what it is.

Tom Orchard-Webb

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