DVSR – “DVSR” [Album Review]

It felt like an absolute age before I managed to catch UK aggro crew Hactivist live and I wasn’t disappointed. I’m hoping it won’t be equally as long before I get to see these Sydney wreckers in the flesh because their debut album is going to be jumping to the top of my playlist and staying there for some time.

A ferocious, fast-paced blast of nu-metal meets metalcore meets hip-hop, this independent release is about as potent as you could want from a record of this ilk. From Matthew Youkhana’s snarling vocal raps to the pummeling modern metalcore/nu-metal riffing, the likes of “Shutdown” and “Beneath The Skin” are spat at you wrapped in a coat of downtuned guitars and venomous fury.

Furthermore, if you’re old enough to remember the nu-metal explosion where bands like Slipknot, Korn and, fuck, even Linkin Park, wrapped skittish vocal deliveries with crunching riffs alongside easily digestible hooks, you’ll get the same feeling listening to DVSR rip through the building flattening “The Forked Tongue.” DVSR is basically what nu-metal would have sounded like if the major record labels hadn’t got their hands on it.

Angry, vicious, potent, there isn’t a weak track on this album in fact, if anything, their anger-laced sound gets more scathing the longer the album continues so much so that, by the time the Aussie outfit are smashing through the jarring closing track “Unconcious” they sound like they’re about to explode. Over time many in the media dismissed nu-metal as nothing more than pre-packaged angst. Well, using bands like DVSR as an example of the modern generation of nu-metal bands, this angst is all very real indeed!

Track Listing:

01. I V I
02. Six Figures Deep
03. Fatal Attraction
04. Shutdown…
05. Life and Death
06. Beneath the Skin
07. Remission
08. Hooded Race
09. The Forked Tongue
10. React
11. Unconscious

Run Time: 40:39
Release Date: November 23, 2015

Check out the song “Shutdown” here.