DYSSEBEIA – Garden Of Stillborn Idols

RELEASE YEAR: 2023

BAND URL: https://dyssebeia.bandcamp.com

Dyssebeia is a brand new (2020 inception) Swiss progressive technical melodic death metal quartet consisting of Alexandre Bu Sotirov (vocals), André Bogado Merlin (guitarist), Duran K. Bathija (bass), Samuel Jakubec (drums) whose debut album Garden Of Stillborn Idols²⁰²³ was released on November 16th via the ever mightier Transcending Obscurity Records and boy, what magnificent work it is!

As you listen to the perfect “Moon Bearer”, the excellent “Retribution” or “Black Swarm”, You’ll likely get flashbacks of the golden age of melodic death metal 1994-1999 (not just of the Gothenburg ore), on one hand, and the more melodeathly side of the New American Wave Of Heavy Metal as represented by Darkest Hour, Unearth or Trivium with a technical twist a’la Human¹⁹⁹¹ and progressive flair of Individual Thought Patterns¹⁹⁹³ and Symbolic¹⁹⁹⁵. In fact, it is that excellent ability to marry the technical and melodic brutality (taste the opener “Mors Tua, Vita Mea”) to progressive structures that makes Dyssebeia so unique and effective and Garden Of Stillborn Idols²⁰²³ one of the best debuts in metal.

Most interestingly, there are a few surprises on this excellent album where both halves are of equal quality. Case in point, the powerful “Hatch” with its Enslaved structure and unmistakably “The Loss and Curse of Reverence” Emperor but only in the lower registers so as to not make it so obvious, or the aforementioned “Moon Bearer” where some riffs recall Vision Of Disorder’s Imprint¹⁹⁹⁸, one of the most original albums of the 90s.

But words cannot express the impact the closing “Apophenia” had on me right off the bat, that is, from the first exposure, but I will attempt to use words anyway since that’s all I have at my disposal here. I think it hits you more because it starts out so plainly, just some groove metal riff Lamb Of God could have sent but then excellent, gradual build up to the chorus, and then it comes, AN ABSOLUTELY MINDBLOWING MELODIC EPIC CHORUS, easily the best on the album but it quickly vanishes beneath a wall which makes the twice returning chorus so much sweeter, except then, at the second chorus comes a fantastic variation on that same melody to top off the chorus (a trick Darkest Hour is best known for), and then a progressive transition unto the end. I wouldn’t mind the chorus the 3rd time but the song is still perfect. I could listen to this over and over and each time get chills down my spine from 3:38-4:08. It’s so moving it seems it could raise the dead. I’ll bet this particular melody is deeply connected to its creator’s (and possibly Creator’s) soul because it’s impossible to fake this much beauty that works the same with every application. It has that quality that makes you think life sucks, it’s brutal, unfair and severely painful on every level, tolerable at best, BUT when I hear this it’s as if someone whispers in my ear “It won’t always be like this, there’s a future place and time where you won’t even think about this life looking back because it won’t be worth recalling”, which reminds of Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is going to be revealed to us” (REV)