Dååth: “Daath Metal at its Finest”

One sub-genre of heavy rock and metal music that has recently enjoyed a resurgence of sorts is death metal. Death metal is maybe the most ferocious and extreme type of metal music, combining brutally hard and loud guitars with gut wrenching vocal styles. This genre has been going strong now since the 1980s, largely thanks to strong scenes in Scandinavia and within the United States, the South-West coast, specifically Florida and Georgia. Some of the more prevalent bands to make a name for themselves out of this South-West scene have been Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation, Withered and the latest offering from this region, Atlanta, Georgia’s Dååth (pronounced Doth). Dååth is a six-piece band relatively new to the death metal world having formed as recently as 2003.

The origins of Dååth trace back to three of the six members which encompass the group today. The band was started by guitarist Eyal Levi, keyboardist Mike Kameron and lead vocalist Sean Farber. The three of them had been playing in bands since they were all in high school before they all attended school together at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. When they began to discover a promising musical chemistry among them, the three of them decided to leave school to fully focus on writing music and starting a band. And although some might assume that the group’s name Dååth has something to do with the word death, because of the spelling similarity and the band’s style of hard metal, nothing could be further from the truth. Dååth is a Hebrew word that means knowledge, but more specifically knowledge that is not achieved by ordinary people.

After officially establishing themselves with a band name and a focus for their music, the members of Dååth embarked on writing and recording their debut album. The results of this focus ended up being the band’s debut record titled Futility, released in 2004. The album featured ten tracks and an interesting album cover illustrating the “futility” of two conjoined twins trying to break apart. Although Futility garnered Dååth a fan base, the band did not receive much attention from the death metal masses until the recent release of their second studio record The Hinderers.

Since the release of The Hinderers in mid-March, Dååth has been receiving growing attention and rave reviews for their unique approach to metal. Even though Dååth definitely has a death metal sound to their music, The Hinderers features a lot of grooves more commonly found in traditional rock rather than hard metal. This approach is unique in that death metal has never been known for its kicks and grooves; something Dååth believes has kept the genre from reaching out to a wider, mainstream audience. Tracks such as “From The Blind,” “Ovum,” and the single “Subterfuge” are all good examples of the groove evident on The Hinderers. Dååth’s slight reinvention of death metal for The Hinderers was aided by producer James Murphy, a very well respected guitarist known for his work with the groups Testament and Disincarnate. James and the rest of the band worked well together as his years of experience producing and playing with metal bands proved to help Dååth further refine and fine tune their sound.

So far The Hinderers is proving to be Dååth’s breakthrough album. The record has sold well and the group’s fan base at concerts is rapidly growing. Although the members of Daath are currently enjoying a few weeks of downtime, they have an insane touring schedule ahead of them for the summer and fall of 2007. Starting at the beginning of June, the band will be on the road pretty much non-stop until the end of October. Part of this hectic touring schedule will include a run on the second stage of this summer’s edition of Ozzfest. The opportunity to play on Ozzfest should prove to be huge for Dååth as a whole new segment of fans will be exposed to their music. As popular as this band has already become, it looks as though this popularity will soon explode even more. Look for Dååth to become a household name of hard metal for years to come.  [ END ]