Formed in 2011 and hailing from Italy Dotzauer attempt to prove there’s more to Italian metal than Cristina Scabbia’s face.
Deep is their debut album and they have set their stall squarely in the post-metal camp with obvious influences of Cult of Luna and The Ocean as well as flourishes of emotional doom metal plied by Ghost Brigade and Swallow The Sun. The influence of The Ocean has been taken one step further in that Deep is a marine concept album about drowning (Cheerful!).
The opening two tracks ‘Organic Silver’ and ‘Water Buries The Skyline’ follow the well-trodden formula of atmospheric melodic guitar lines building into a crushing crescendo with impassioned growled vocals, Although they wear these influences on their sleeve this doesn’t detract from the conviction of the interpretation.
Upon fist listen track three ‘Deepster’ appeared to be a pointless piece of interlude music however after several listens to Deep it becomes a bridge of sorts between two distinct halves.
So if the opening salvo is pure influenced worship then the interlude signals when Dotzauer begin to show their stripes as they incorporate their own ideas into the template.
Such as on ‘Air Hunger’ when they throw in a Russian Circles style bass riff or ‘Shred of Consciousness’ when it reaches an absolutely stunning melodic doom metal crescendo.
So in essence, this is can be categorised as a pure genre piece, but along with finale of ‘When the Soul and the Abyss Wave to Each Other’ the final three tracks of Deep show off enough sparks of individuality to make this a worthy addition to your collection and also encouraging to keep an eye on them for the future.
As a side note, interestingly every track appears to reach its respective flourish or crescendo around the 5:30 mark which I like to think is an intentional development or perhaps just a band in-joke.
