Dissocia is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Daniel R Flys (of Persefone and Eternal Storm) and drummer Gabriel Valcázar (Wormed and Cancer). On their debut, To Lift the Veil, the duo set themselves a challenge: blend extreme metal with synthwave and dreamwave elements to create a catchy, yet unpredictable, blend of genres that come together into a progressive package. Were these two complete unknowns presenting that vision, one would rightly expect a horrifically unlistenable car crash. However, given Flys and Valcázar’s pedigree with their other outfits, I had somewhat higher hopes (albeit with expectations carefully managed) for Dissocia. I’m not entirely sure what dreamwave is, and synthwave is not my go-to, although it has its place1 but, mixed with extreme metal, I envisaged some sort of off-the-wall Devin Townsend craziness happening.
Straight out of the gate, the dancing arpeggio-like guitar line and swelling synths that open “Existentialist” make clear that To Lift the Veil is going to be a wild ride. And so it proves. Across a chaotic 41 minutes and change, Dissocia lurch between progressive melodeath, something that approaches deathcore in a few places (“He Who Dwells”), symphonic synth movements, dreamy Unreqvited-esque sequences and more, the whole often set to weirdly discordant, pulsing rhythms that border on industrial groove. All in all, the album’s structures have the same levels of predictability as the movements of a severely inebriated person crossing an ice rink. This need not necessarily be viewed as a bad thing though. Flys is both a talented guitarist and a versatile vocalist, his harsh vox often recalling Gojira’s Joe Duplantier (“Existentialist”), while his surprisingly delicate cleans, which occasionally wander into Caligula’s Horse territory (“Evasion”), offer a much-needed extra dimension. Similarly, Valcázar’s work on drums is stellar and the sheer unpredictability of this record is part of its charm.
The challenge for Dissocia is to somehow tie the numerous threads of To Lift the Veil into a cohesive tapestry, rather than a ball of yarn. At its strongest, they manage this well. There’s a rabid groove to “Samsara” that it’s almost impossible not to enjoy, while the slow build synth opening to “Zenosyne” gradually unfolds itself, the tension building, before the Flys’ guitar lets loose progressive death riffs and Valcázar unleashes overlapping broadsides behind the kit. This flows well into “The Lucifer Effect,” which similarly shifts between soaring moments of chaos and more reflective passages. While the turn-on-a-dime nature of the craziness does in some ways recall Devin Townsend, it’s not until the heavily distorted screams at the midway point of closer “Out of Slumber” that Hevy Devy really shows through in the vocals.
Not everything on To Lift the Veil works though and, at times, it feels like Dissocia are losing their grasp on the myriad elements of the record. “He Who Dwells” is the most obvious example of this, as the progressive extreme elements, which often mirror opener “Existentialist,” stray into deathcore territory, particularly in Valcázar’s drumming. This simply doesn’t gel with the rest of To Lift the Veil. Equally, the drifting moods of “Evasion” seem rather aimless at times, while Flys’ vocals rather get away from him on closer “Out of Slumber,” which by its end feels like someone desperately trying to claw themselves out of slumber and into wakefulness. The production, also handled by Flys, doesn’t always help, with the drums sometimes seeming to disappear down a hole (middle of “He Who Dwells”) before roaring back to the front of the stage, and the whole thing feeling loud and slightly flat, despite the DR6.
You have to admire the vision and ambition on show on To Lift the Veil, which in other hands would likely have been a hot mess. Far from easing themselves into things on their debut, Dissocia have thrown everything at this record and some of it’s really good (“Samsara” and “Zenosyne”). The stunning artwork by Rein Van Oyen (Haken) gives a sense of the surreal, expansive journey you can expect, but perhaps not the chaotic nature of the ride. I hope Dissocia have a second album in them because, with just a little more refinement and focus to iron out some of the inconsistencies, as well as improve the production a little, there is a helluva lot of very interesting potential here.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: dissociaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/to-lift-the-veil | facebook.com/dissociaofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025
The post Dissocia – To Lift the Veil Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.
