RELEASED OCTOBER 28TH ON STEAMHAMMER / SPV
Do you remember Mercyful Fate back in the day? Do you remember how apprehensive and addicted about their music you once were? Well, that is the only way I can best describe my feelings about Dope. I know Edsel Dope is not King Diamond but both share this persona, aura and intriguing and fascinating personality that only a few have in the music industry.
Nu, Alternative or Industrial Metal are the standards labels attached to Dope when it comes to position their music. I think it is more than that. I think it’s urban and abrasive, it’s energy and raw poetry, it’s modern and enthralling. I would even say that their ambivalence has no equivalence.
Blood Money is the fragment one of a two-parts album. The material is lyric, epic, energetic, industrial and viscerally human. Your feelings won’t be left intact. Imagine an open wound being actively worked on with a screwdriver. You will either love or hate their music. I don’t think you can be neutral.
Drug Music, the single and teaser, is full of breaks and deliver a song which you can listen to on multiple levels. There are so many aspects of the song you can choose to follow, it is destabilizing. 15 tracks including a bonus track called Violet alongside A New Low, the excellent Selfish and Numb with its hypnotic intro are maybe not constituting a master piece or a tipping moment in the music industry but it is fair to say that Blood Money is shifting some heavy metal parameters.
Lexapro intro is introducing some gravitas in the overall atmosphere of the album, a welcomed pause almost before hoping to more traditional speed "metallized" tracks Hold On & 1999. Lyrics are obscene, it’s dirty, with raw and full in your face unapologetic statements: "we all say fuck it", "I never thought I would be alive".
Dope is unique and provocative but don’t get them wrong: Edsel and the gang have not chosen the easiest route but they are loyal to their own roots.
Overall: Attractively scary!
If I was to pick three only: Drug Music, Lexapro, Selfish
Live Test: I am almost sure it is monstrously good
Review by Pascal Derrin
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