Deadstar Assembly.
Where oh where do I start with this band? They're certainly one of my favorites. I found them, how all great discoveries are made, by accident a few years ago when I was eleven. The Youtube player was on shuffle and they popped up right after Spectrum-X. The video was for "Breathe For Me" off of their self-titled debut. It was moving, wonderful, and totally captured that helpless, I-just-need-something-to-believe-in angst. I was instantly captured by how rough, and yet melodic their sound was. Deadstar Assembly's second album Unsaved came out shortly after that, and you best believe I went right out, bought it, plunked myself down in my room, and didn't take those headphones off for days.
Deadstar Assembly is a strange culmination of all that's great about industrial metal, with touches of goth rock thrown in to create this hard-edged, enigmatic wall of sound that roars (quite literally) listeners down from the first notes of the album to the last verse of the last track. Their sound is completely unique, you know instantly when you are listening to a DSA song. I challenge anyone to find another band that is as innovative in the industrial metal scene today, or that has a better relationship with their fans.
I meet people all over that see my DSA buttons and go on and on about how they went to a concert, met the guys and they were so cool, and down-to-earth. In my personal experience, I asked them on Facebook if I could do a review, and I wasn't expecting to hear back for a few days, if at all, and they got back to me within an hour. From someone who has had her fair share of being disappointed and/or ignored by rockstars, that's pretty cool.
Their third album, Coat of Arms, is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. It's brash, it's completely different than anything else I've heard, it's in-your-face, it's "D"-all-of-the-above on the freakin' awesome scale. To list all the great songs from the album, I'd have to list them all. The first song I ever heard from DSA, "Breathe For Me" is on this album too, which is sort of confusing, but enjoyable all the same. My favorite track off of the album has got to be "F.Y.G." standing for, "Fuck Your God." This song does make me laugh, because, come on, when is the last time there was a band with enough guts to be like, "Yeah, we just said that, this is what we think, it doesn't matter what you think!" so blatently in a song? Now, before you jump on the "they hate christianity, attack!" bandwagon, from the band themselves, "FYG is about celebrity worship, nothing to do with religion. It pokes fun at the media making celebrities out of people that have no merit and contribute nothing. The prerequisite being money, beauty and a scandalous sex tape. Fascinating how people find Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian interesting."
Mid-January, Deadstar Assembly released a clip of a brand new song, "Blame It On the Devil." Holy fuck, hell was just unleashed through my speakers. It sounds fresh, different, and like it moves in a slightly different direction than past albums, but still has that innate DSA feel. Deadstar Assembly is still in the writing and recording stage of their fourth album, Adorned In Thorns. There is no specific release date right now, but according to the band's Facebook page, the album will be out sometime in 2012.
I really don't know what else I can say about this band besides they are phenomenal at what they do, and they are very special to me. Their music has helped me out in hard times, and still there to rock out to when I'm happy. I keep trying to think of bands that sound like DSA, but there really aren't any. If you like music that is brutal, hard-hitting, with goth overtones, and a strong backbone of electronic, this is definitely a band you will love, just like I do.
--Gorgeous Nightmare
