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Duel (USA) - Breakfast with Death

It took them less than three years to compose and record "Breakfast with Death" with a simple artwork which is easy to understand and 38 minutes of music which only Duel is able to perform. Their recipe is absolutely unique and for non-US-bands not to copy. They put the southern swagger together with NWoBHM, Proto Metal, a bit of melodic Doom, spiced with the ghost of late 70´s b-movies, horror-movies and the useful amount of a winking eye.

The production is closer to "In carne Persona" than to the more Garage Rock oriented sound of their first releases.

 

Tom Frank's sense of riffing almost systematically hits the mark, like the devastating "Ancient Moonlight", "Fallacy" (an angry metal riffing), or the melodic pattern of "Berserker". The more proto hard rock trappings are always very present too, like on "Satan's Invention" (all the more so with its solo in harmony), or the catchy "Tigers of Destruction".

 

In the more "metal" segment, we also find our account with the solid "Greet the Dead", "Fallacy" or even "Chaos Reigns" (which develops a big metal rather doom on its verse... and almost thrash on its chorus!).

 

After only a few listens, the writing skill of the group is drawn through passages that we quickly enjoy singing, like the verse of "Fallacy" or the choruses of "Berserker" or "Pyro" for example. "Pyro" since we are talking about it, is largely based on a very punk rock rhythm, an inspiration that we also find behind the massive "Burn the Earth", even if the latter is based on a much denser and bolder musical spectrum - probably one of the best tracks on the album. In short, it still casts a wide net, but the musical skeleton of Duel remains of an irreproachable consistency, picking here and there elements that above all serve the efficiency of a set of punchy compositions (little or no mid-tempo on this album).


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