Those of you suffering from coulrophobia may want to skip this one as it is time to send in the clowns. I like a bit of the old circus in my music and one of my favourite bands The Cardiacs are very much the masters of putting the sound of the show into their music. In black metal there are others who are kings of the carnival (creation) and who can forget the likes of Big Elf splattering their progressive fare with musical custard pies in the face? Dakrya are an act who also can now be added to the list. These Greek ladies and gents have been around since 2005 and have brought out one previous album ‘Monumento’ a couple of years ago. With ‘Crime Scene’ they have written a concept album with a story running through it which sees a psychojuggler (thankfully ICP free) masterminding a game of Blind Mans Bluff that everyone seems to be playing. It is pretty whacked out stuff and to be honest the description of things on the inner sleeve of the CD case is kind of incoherent anyway. You could try and follow the tall tale through the lyrics or simply put it all aside as I have done and get into the music itself.
As ‘The Charlatans’ tinkles in via sound of a musical box and then the skewed instrumentation hammers in you are quickly aware that this is theatrical and dramatic stuff. The vocals are dealt with by not one but two ladies Thomais and Christina as well as backing male parts from George. The band are not afraid to liberally take well known circus music and actually drop it into their songs and the whole thing rattles away delivered with a madcap intensity. Putting it all in a musical perspective is not that easy for those insistent on genre classification, progressive it certainly is but I like the groups own description terming their craft as an ‘avant-garde metal freak show’ the best. There are a lot of clever ideas and the musicianship is certainly skilled rather than the sound of a load of people clowning about (sorry I couldn’t resist that). Songs such as the aforementioned ‘Blind Mans Bluff’ with its ‘round and round’ lyrical refrain really do just that and get right into your head. The male vocals add a bit of the ringmaster about things and the two ladies both have a style that make things all the more dramatic, playing different roles as the story unfolds. Musically it is very accessible but there is a lot of heaviness to be found here and I would imagine the band are great to catch live, perhaps they could even hit each other with rubber hammers and scoot around the stage in miniature cars, although frankly that would be a bit daft.
The press blurb that came with this album has tried to mention comparable acts even though with this lot they had their work cut out. I can see Therion due to the vocal interplay and the melodrama of Diablo Swing Orchestra is another (fun)fair comment but in essence this troupe are pretty damn unique. So if you are one of those people who wish that pantomime season was all year round and the circus was constantly rolling into town you should find a lot to like here, but be careful when you roll up, roll up, these evil clowns won’t let you out their clutches easily.
http://www.dakrya.com
http://www.myspace.com/dakrya
