Roadrunner Records
2007
The Hinderers
About This Album
Daath's ambitious sophomore album, The Hinderers, already challenges a few musical conventions by meshing ample symphonic and electronic elements into an otherwise archetypal death metal sound -- but that's not even as surprising as their extensive lyrical immersion in Kabbalistic mysticism. Already in evidence on their self-financed first album from 2004 (the band's very name comes from the Hebrew word for "knowledge"), the subject seems to gather even more strength on this more fully realized Roadrunner debut, whose original ten tracks were expanded to 13 at their record company's request -- but not 11, never 12, lest the balance of the Sefirot (the Jewish tree of life) be disrupted. More importantly, though, The Hinderers largely succeeds solely on its aforementioned musical merits, providing equally satisfying physical catharsis for the head-banging faithful, as it does cerebral stimulation for those who actually care about all of this thematic mucky-muck. And so, pulverizing opener "Subterfuge" quickly establishes Daath's dense wall of sound, which is almost always democratically stacked with both guitars and synths, no matter how brutal subsequent offerings like "From the Blind" and "Ovum" may be.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4 and 5)

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