DWELLING IN THE OUT

After their first album Listen Digital Ruin made another masterpiece, capable to compete with the first one. And soon after Dwelling In The Out the band called it a day - A huge lost for the whole progressive metal scene! Anyhow, both albums are very rare masterworks now and they are very hard to find. If you do find one, buy it at once!

The overall atmosphere here is again very dark, depressing and sinister, but this time it's not about thematic album; nevetherless, this album is very unitary and tight; better and better songs follow one another and they combine as an excellent album taking the listener into a dark, frightening trip into the emotional heavy world of Digital Ruin. If you try to seek a weak song here, you're in the wrong place, try elsewhere. Like in Listen, the sounds are again somewhat thick but again this might serve the dark atmosphere.

Still the showing off solos are notably absent; the band builds its music with a tight interplay, powerful riffs and comps, strong, dynamic percussion, howling keyboards, sampled sounds,... so the bands musical expression haven't basically changed since the first album at all - individual performances are only auxilary to the principle: Music, Emotions, the Feel, the Atmosphere, but only the thematic stucture is left behind. That actually degreases the vivid stuctures and multilayered vocal lines of this album, making it sound more straightforward and less progressive, but the progressiveness is still strongly there, hidden below the emotions.

The lyrics are an excellent example of how very dark and depressing words can be written without naive demonic subjects, but the darkness is inside onself and the surrounding and things in it are dark and depressing by only who look at them. This is everyday darkness of life, loneliness, desolation and such. These subjects are sung with a great pain and agony of mister Pacheco - He's definitely one of the greatest singers of the genre, his empathy and style just belongs here like a fist in the eye.