Hello Metalheads! This is John back with another album review. This one is called The River Above by Druparia, it comes out on December 27th, 2024 and is self released! This debut it a melo-death metal work that flirts with thrash at times as well. This is another band that comes from Ohio that I’ve discovered in the last five years or so. Bands like Carrion Vael, The Behest of Serpents, Others by No One and Terranoct are popping up everywhere!
These guys have really crafted a sound that requires both headphones in and full attention to hear everything that is going on. There are always two guitars playing differing lines, drumming all over the place and to top it off the bass is present as well. The vocals are also blended quite well in the mix and not too loud. The musicianship shown here is just so good. The grooves and riffs demand headbaning and great energy when they kick in. Even basic slower sections have the intricate sections to keep attention very well.
Druparia primarily is a riff focused straight ahead band, but does have a few progressive passages mixed in. Kintsugi is one of those tracks, it starts off with some melodic mellowed out guitars. But then slowly builds into a nice groove that has a nice lead line that it’s all built around. The intro to this song is around 1:10 in length, then the vocals come in. The main groove is kept, but the lead takes a backseat but does come back between passages. The next variation is a quick thrashy passage that slowly devolves into another more relaxed section thay is broken down to almost nothing. Then it slowly builds back up into a nice wall of sound around the second thrash passage, the next thing they do is solo over that! They slow it down after that with a quick vocal break then bring it back to a riff centric head banging end!
My favorite track off of this album is Bled for Comfort. It starts off with a slow plodding introduction before building in the main riff. When the main riff is initially introduced, the riff is played and moved around in surround sound like it is moving around your head! Then the main groove comes in with vocals and is very thrash orientated. This keeps up with the pulse pounding feel for a couple of rounds before changing and going into a guitar solo. The feel is changed to be a half time, the original riff comes back but the drumming also makes it feel in half time! Then there is a guitar solo played over the original thrash sound before the half Time returns with another solo. I really enjoy how they play with the feel and almost meter of the song.
This one is definitely for fans of older material from The Black Dahlia Murder, Revocation and In Flames. I really enjoyed this whole work at lot and will return quite a few times to listen more. I would give this a 8.5/10 and is a really solid debut! All of the social links will be below, make sure to give this a listen and give these guys a follow!
https://www.facebook.com/share/15iMTQjKAm/?mibextid=wwXIfr
https://druparia.bandcamp.com/?
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/druparia/1514151204
Categories: Album Review, Death Metal