Music Review: Dragged Into Sunlight - Hatred for Mankind

A lot of people seem to love this album, but if I said I did, I would be lying. I don't think its terrible and it may just be a great album as many seem to think. I think it is a good album, it is one that will definitely get under the skin, but there is something about it that just doesn't click. I cannot say that I care for the sporadic use of sampled audio clips throughout, they just stood out like a sore thumb and ruined the flow.



The one thing I can saw about Dragged Into Sunlight is that they make me feel dirty. When I am done listening to them I think I should go take a shower to wash away any of he dark residue that they may have left behind. This is a heavy, fuzzy dose of misanthropic doom. It is the kind of music that you have to wonder about the mindset of those who make.

Actually, have you ever stopped to think about the psyches that are behind some of this extreme music? I know they are not about to take up arms and go on killing sprees or anything (aside from gangsta battles and black metal grudges), but have you ever thought about it? I listen to Dragged Into Sunlight with its guttural screams, distorted guitars, doomy rhythms, and I wonder. What led these musicians down this path? I am sure there is an interesting study to be had there.

With Hatred for Mankind you do not have to wait for the music to begin to get a feel fr what these guys are about. The cover art is pretty disturbing. I have seen grosser covers, but this one is pretty unsettling, like crudely made cave drawings. This features a woman with blank and bloody eye sockets spewing shards into the air while giving birth to a child with three ropes/tentacles pulling on it while druids/Klansmen adorned with satanic images stand in the background. It is affecting and just plain messed up.

The music offers up bilious loads of blackened death and sludge metal. It is doomy, apocalyptic and benefits from a clean but raw production quality that gives it an unbalanced feel with the cymbals riding high in the mix and the snare drum having a strange attack. Vocals are what you would expect for the style.

It all works together but I am left on the outside, cold and alone. Maybe that is their goal. Whatever the case, for as many intriguing moments as it has, it is angry, bleak music that does not want to welcome me back anytime soon.

Mildly Recommended.