Dakrya - Crime Scene (2010)

With a very similar style to Unexpect, Dreams of Sanity, and Diablo Swing Orchestra, today we have Dakrya, a band from Greece that is ready to turn heads with their sophomore release “Crime Scene”.  After their very decent debut album “Monumento”, the band seems to have refined their style and exploit their strengths on “Crime Scene”.

While many bands are running around trying to copy DSO these days, Dakrya never gives you that feeling since the band’s music is a bit less jazzy and a bit darker than anything DSO has released, but on songs like “The Urban Tribe” the similarities cannot be contained. You still get the theatrical feeling on this release and while the band’s music is less elaborated than DSO or Unexpect, we still get nine very solid tracks of madness.

Like on “Monumento”, one of the highlights of the band is the brilliant synth/keyboard arrangements that create 85% of the atmosphere in “Crime Scene”. The other highlight of this album is the dual vocal attack from Christina and Thomais, creating beautiful duets through the album. The band does not require many ‘foreign’ elements, and when they use extra tools (i.e. the sax) on songs like “Camouflage” they become more dynamic in nature by expanding their sound.

The guitar work is pretty standard for a release like this and creates good and powerful riffs and melodies that are greatly exploited by the superb drumming and the bass guitar line. In terms of the ‘Metal’ aspect of things, the band does a great job in never going over the top with the theatrics and never loses focus of their genre.

The majority of the songs in “Crime Scene” are short (less than 5 minutes), allowing the listener to get a good dose of variety and never become tired with the theatrical side of things. “Phantasmagoria” and “Camouflage” are our favorite songs and easily make this release a good purchase of fans of the previously mentioned band. Other songs like “The Charlatans”, Inertia” and “Dramais Personae” show the ability that Dakrya has to create solid and deranged songs that will command you attention for more than a few listens in order to fully digest them and catch the little details behind them.

In general, Dakrya has greatly matured since their debut album “Monumento”, and this release shows how their musicianship and song writing abilities have evolved. If you love theatrical bands, you should not miss this release. The vocals and music in “Crime Scene” is top notch and backed by an excellent production, the listeners will get more than they can imagine when purchasing this CD.

Release: October 12th, 2010

Country: Greece