Six albums into a fairly unremarkable career and it’s fair to say that you know what you’re going to get with a band like French groove metallers Dagoba.
Tales Of The Black Dawn is the sort of pit-friendly mosh riffing that they’ve made their name with. So if you are already a fan then you’ll be sated here, especially with songs like Born Twice giving them a touch of Swedish melody and brutality combined to fine effect.
But for the uninitiated, you’d be hard pressed to suggest Dagoba represent a better example of this style than, say, The Haunted at their finest. Unfortunately, for a band that began at the turn of the millennium, they appear to have been somewhat left there. The Loss’s attempts to add a cleaner vocal style and some strings to their sound just coming across as hideously dated and desperately out of touch. When they stick to big riffs and straightforward heavy metal stylings, Dagoba can still just about cut it. But is just about cutting it ever really going to be enough?
