Review: The Black Dahlia Murder – Servitude

September 18, 2024

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When Trevor Strnad, frontman and founding member of The Black Dahlia Murder, passed in 2022 the future of the group was unclear. In losing such a close friend so young, and in losing such a massive part of the band’s musical identity, no one would have blamed the band for disbanding or reuniting under a different project. Such a massive loss would destroy most bands, particularly of the prominence of The Black Dahlia Murder.

Instead, the band would later announce their continuation and lineup change: fellow founding member and lead guitarist Brian Eschbach would take over vocal duties, while former guitarist Ryan Knight would return for the first time since 2016 in his place. Continuing like they have takes an immense amount of strength, both in their personal lives and in the inherent pressure of meeting the expectations set for them.

Because with The Black Dahlia Murder, it’s hard to think of a more consistent band in their style, particularly at their level of prominence. Personally I flip-flop between Ritual and Everblack as their full-length peak, but they’ve always retained a level of high-quality output as a band – even as far back as the Unhallowed and Miasma days. While their previous record Verminous was probably my least favourite record from them, it was still a solid listen throughout in its own right, highlighted in particular by the excellent title track and “Dawn Of Rats.”

The band re-introduced themselves with the lead single “Aftermath,” a relatively short song that sounds designed to reassure fans of the bands stay in direction. A mostly lineal continuation from Verminous, it underlined the sound of the album to come. Brian’s voice evokes the snarled, rhythmically dense nature of Trevor’s; certainly familiar, but it feels done with more of a sense of respect than as a hollow pastiche. This was followed by “Mammoth’s Hand,” which has much more of its own identity, introducing itself with a slower paced arpeggio and then establishing a mix of mid-tempo rhythms and staccato chugging. It’s written with much more flair and fluidity; if “Aftermath” was the band signaling their re-emergence, then “Mammoth’s Hand” is them signaling their march forward.

“Evening Ephemeral” begins Servitude with a short, ponderous introduction, as if leaning into the tension surrounding a new Black Dahlia Murder album, before exploding into one of best tracks on the record – a track weaving conventional melo-death sounds with subtle, orchestral flair in its lead guitar. “Panic Hysteric” is more immediate, having this sense of instability in its composition throughout before transitioning into more measured moments of respite. The track really highlights the return of Ryan Knight, and it highlights the bands longstanding gift for mixing bright melodies into their songwriting without compromising the songs structural integrity or overwhelming the rest of the mix. There’s a fucking landfill of melo-death and metalcore bands who died a death by squeezing their already piss-poor melodic sensibilities dry, but The Black Dahlia Murder continue to impress after over twenty years.

“Cursed Creator” is the most rhythmically recognisable on the album, highlighting the low-end interplay between the bass and the fantastic drum performance by Alan Cassidy. Even while the rest of the track attempts to find a more relaxed pace as the song progresses, the drums persist in warlike attrition, evoking this feeling of fucking exhaustion once the soloing starts – one of their best tracks in a decade.

The fittingly named “An Intermission” acts as a short, acoustic respite that launches into “Asserting Dominion,” a song that really embodies the spirit of their older material, and while that could feel inessential or redundant on another record, on Servitude it feels appropriately reflective. The title track, in comparison, feels less focused, more lightweight, and is probably the weakest moment on the record.

“Transcosmic Blueprint” has a strong sense of urgency fitting its more rollicking delivery, really leaning into 2000s melodic metalcore in its instrumentation while also incorporating unexpectedly bluesy riffing at its mid-point. The record closes with the more ambitious “Utopia Black,” a track that has a more dynamic interplay between rhythm and lead guitar work, feeling more measured and less frenetic throughout. It bookends the record with the softer, acoustic instrumentation that Evening Ephemeral introduced it with.

Servitude could have sounded like an evocation of past glories The Black Dahlia Murder records and that would have been enough for most; something comfortable and consistent in the wake of a horrific chapter in the band’s life. Instead, Servitude is, against all odds, a massive highlight in their discography. While it will perhaps always be an album defined by the context surrounding its recording, that same context imbues its moments of melancholy with pathos, its most powerful moments with triumph.