Dig Two Graves is a progressive metal core outfit from central New Jersey. Combining an eclectic mix of Progressive Metal, Djent, and atmospheric dream pop. Starting back in 2017, Dig Two Graves has been working tirelessly to separate them from the pack in a very crowded genre. By combing a variety of musical styles into their all too often, cliché-heavy genre, this is their debut recording.
The first song in an instrumental that starts off interesting and quiet with some samples then gets a bit irritating with the skipping sound that it takes on. The first track, “As Above” starts off nice and heavy and gets your head banging with the power and driving force it has. The only thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was the screamed vocals, the clean vocals in the song are far better. I really liked the background to most of the songs, light and lilting music that soothes and then bang, the heaviness hits you like a kick to the groin, but the lilting music is still there in the background. Closer “So Below” is an epic song coming in at over 7 minutes and has everything in it, dream pop, progressive and metal, in your face metal. The song is a perfect end to the album with the band firing on all pistons and giving you the raw emotion and power that you expect from the previous songs. The added female vocals are a perfect addition to the track.
While not being too different sounding from track to track, the band does have potential to get a lot of fans and would probably put on one hell of a show live. While not being huge on the screamed vocals, the intensity and rawness does give this a lot of power and does make it stand out from the other bands with everything mixed up the way that they do it.
-Rick Ecker