Dormant Ordeal - The Grand Scheme of Things

Angry Metal Guy

Since joining the AMG staff, a lot has changed, both personally¹ and in the world. Everywhere you look, something is completely fucking different from how it was a mere half-decade ago. Poland’s Dormant Ordeal, however, are immune to the trend. Their 2016 opus We Had It Coming certainly had its spot on that year’s Best Of lists coming, and their tech-death sound remains exactly as it was, stalwart and monolithic. But if you aren’t moving forward, you’re moving backward, and Dormant Ordeal can’t risk falling behind in a strong year for a crowded tech-death field. Their new record has to stand apart in The Grand Scheme of Things if it wants any shot at another repeat year-end performance.

The thing with stasis is that, if nothing else, it’s consistent. If you thought WHIC was a standout album, guess what? You can stop reading now and go shove money in Dormant Ordeal‘s faces. This record is Polish death metal incarnate: ambitious, heady, and technically poetic on one hand, the other hand squeezing your dome so hard that your eyes pop out. The band fully recognize their early-Decapitated-without-moral-quandaries formula is their most obvious selling point and wisely lean into it. They come charging out of “At the Garden’s Gates” energized with maniacal intent; they will rend the dissodeath pastiche to its maximum, or they will die trying. Maciej Nieścioruk — now handling every aspect of the guitarwork — drops riffs so heavy, they could tilt all of GMT+1 toward Kraków. The spiraling masterpiece of “Poetry Doesn’t Work on Whores”; Radek Kowal’s pounding annihilation and Maciej Proficz’s crushing roars of “Sides of Defence”; the perfect mix of shrill and stout, dissonant and deadly on “Bright Constellations.” At its best, the album could produce any number of death metal songs of the year (and, for my money, did with the last of those).

The Grand Scheme of Things by Dormant Ordeal

If there is an issue, it’s one common to this corner of the genre: once Grand Scheme gets going, not even the band seem capable of stopping it. The sonic black holes of Ulcerate come to mind, not in any tangible musical quality, but for how breathless everything can be. Dormant Ordeal seem intent on bashing you to death with riff after riff. Make no mistake, they’re all choice offerings, but once the walls start closing in, it feels like there’s no escape… because there rarely is any. Starting around the 20-minute mark, “Here Be Dragons” or “Letters to Mr. Smith” specifically, the spin’s metronomic pace and constant consternation start to blur songs together. That the chaos never abates for more than a few moments — a softer bridge here, some spoken word there — saps its punch as the record tears towards its end. We Had It Coming suffered a similar issue to a lesser extent, a singular focus on the onslaught that it nears suffocation, but Dormant Ordeal addressed it better there. The hidden faces and quieter moments, tucked into the corners of the tornado, opened new worlds within the sound.

As such, the highlight of our current outing is, at least for a humble wvrm, the finale “The Borders of Our Language Are Not the Borders of Our World.” Anchored not by what it does but by what it does not, the long-form closer offers balance to a record sorely in need of some. It’s the song I’ve wanted for years, but I can’t help but feel like there was so much more possible on this platter. Dissodeath’s versatility of sound, the genre’s greatest strength, allows for more moods than “I smashed my dick in a car door.” That next level made We Had It Coming truly special to me. Here, the quality of Grand Scheme is more readily apparent, with riffs perhaps even better than last time and an improved production from Paweł Grabowski to boot, but it feels like there’s just one thing missing.

This might be a bit nitpicky in the end, especially as The Grand Scheme of Things is a lock to make my year-end list. Make no mistake: I love this record, and we’ve been far too long without Dormant Ordeal. This band should be near the top of the death metal scene, and if the response to this release that I’ve seen so far is any indication, they may be there soon. But it’s not often the tech-death band that can do more than just noodle and fret, rarer still that they can reach for the atmospheric and come out improved. Dormant Ordeal have proven to be that band in the past; I have every faith they can be again.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Selfmadegod Records
Websites: dormantordeal.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/dormant.ordeal
Releases Worldwide: December 3rd, 2021

The post Dormant Ordeal – The Grand Scheme of Things Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Angry Metal Guy

Written by: Nameless_n00b_71

Five years ago, Dr. Wvrm highlighted Poland’s Dormant Ordeal’s We Had It Coming as a Thing You Might Have Missed. While Wvrm was overwhelmingly positive, he noted that the band had room and serious potential for more exploration. Often third albums make or break bands, as they either transcend their influences in a burst of self-actualization or recede into the unforgiving metal landscape. Fortunately, the band seems to have used the five years crafting their follow-up wisely. On their third full-length release and first for Selfmadegod, Dormant Ordeal pushes the boundaries of its tech-death formula with more of everything: more melody, more groove, and yet more furious riffs. Channeling bits of Decapitated, mid-era Enslaved, and Ulcerate, the members of Dormant Ordeal create something new in The Grand of Scheme Things that sways and thrashes in equal measure.

The Grand Scheme of Things by Dormant Ordeal

Dormant Ordeal plays a brand of tech-death heavily inspired by their Polish forebears but with an eye firmly on the broader extreme metal scene. Whereas their countrymen’s influences were more present on debut It Rains, It Pours and follow-up We Had It Coming, here we see the band drawing on broader, groovier influences without watering down their core aggression. Founder Radek Kowal’s remains a thunderous force behind the kit, while guitarist Maciej Nieścioruk continues to deploy tendon-snapping riffs throughout. But the band also brings an altogether new sense of groove that sees Nieścioruk employing dissonant chords of the Ulcerate variety while also mixing in clean harmonics on tracks like “Letters to Mr. Smith.” Elsewhere, he brings a sense of Mastodon’s groove to the intro of “Sides of Defence,” while the opening riff on “Let the Light In” bears Axioma Ethica Odini-era Enslaved vibes. Kowal similarly makes otherwise brutal songs sway (“Bright Constellations”).

The new experimentation on The Grand Scheme of Things works because the trio have matured as songwriters and arrangers. Here each member knows when less is more and when to push the million note-per-second envelope. While Dormant Ordeal started as a solo project for Kowal, The Grand Scheme of Things is clearly the production of a band in lockstep. Despite how busy the song compositions are, the performers never compete for space. Kowal often threatens to overwhelm a solo or clean guitar section, but restrains himself just enough that the tension of teetering over the brink into a complete cacophonous mess serves the songs (“The Borders of Our Language Are Not the Borders of Our World”). Nieścioruk creatively inverts a standard guitarist’s approach to composition throughout the album. Rather than playing comparatively simply throughout riffs and shredding through solos, Nieścioruk often saves his most technical playing for intro and verse riffs, while simplifying his playing for solos (“Poetry Doesn’t Work on Whores” and “Letters to Mr. Smith”). This approach lifts entire songs to another level by letting bridges and solos breathe in a way that other tech-death bands often miss. The band’s newfound restraint carries over to Maciej Proficz’s performance on the album. This culminates on highlight “Poetry Doesn’t Work on Whores” where he uses his standard growl but also a whisper in the bridge before launching into a savage bark that punches you right in the mouth.

If there’s one knock on The Grand Scheme of Things, it is the production. Having a consistent DR6 score throughout is a damn shame, since it means that the more melodic moments don’t pop as much as they should. This is also a problem for the more tech-death elements, where riffs should puncture eardrums through their intensity, not their production. While repeat listens should always reward the attentive listener by uncovering little details, they shouldn’t be necessary to pick out core parts. The production ends up being a three-fold issue because the band designed the first four tracks to neatly flow into one another, but the loud production job makes for an exhausting experience on first listen.

Dormant Ordeal has evolved significantly with The Grand Scheme of Things. While the album demands your attention throughout and requires multiple listens to uncover the rich layers of the band’s songwriting, it clocks in at just over 39 minutes, meaning you’ll have lots of time to spin this blistering set again and again. With the loud production, it just might not be back to back.

Editor’s Addendum: This was originally intended to run as a double review along with Doc Wvrm‘s, but through no fault of Nameless N00b_71‘s, we had to break them up. Now you get a second take on a notable album, so be grateful, you filthy ingrates!

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Selfmadegod Records
Websites: dormantordeal.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/dormant.ordeal
Releases Worldwide: December 3rd, 2021

The post Dormant Ordeal – The Grand Scheme of Things Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.