Someone rolled the dice on the “real life random encounters” table and here we are. On December, 2021, I managed to briefly host some karaoke again and while hosting, in walked this group with an air of rock/metal around them and they got to singing. They were pretty good so I struck up a conversation with them and lamented the fact that why the fuck didn’t I wear my Hevikaraoke shirt on that particular day. Somehow it came up that one of them sings in a band, the titular DIREGOD. Asking about what kind of metal they played, the singer, Niko Kauhanen, said “hellishly good metal”. Sold.
“Out!” is a fairly punchy one-word title and the title also accompanies a fairly punchy single, which is a fantastic debut for an unknown band. The song starts with a “dry” version of the main riff and after 20ish seconds, we get to the song proper, which is appropriately well mixed, with enough flaws that it doesn’t sound like a big label production. Once the singing starts, it’s like a breath of fresh air, since aforementioned Niko Kauhanen actually sings, with his actual voice and not just growls and screams, which seems to be all too common among modern metal these days. The man’s voice itself is like the song and the mixing themselves: competent, yet rough enough to differentiate it from overproduction. Aside from a clunky transition from the second verse to a kickass guitar solo, the song itself is very solid for a newcomer band with three members. The outro in the song drove me insane for a while, since I was reminded of some song, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. After a dozen or so replays, it connected. It reminded me of IN FLAMES‘ “Colony” outro. If it isn’t a deliberate homage, it certainly sounds suspiciously similar. They also have a music video for “Out!” that you can check it out here:
There was a point in the video where I laughed out loud, when they hard cut from the lads rocking out to the main man sitting outside singing. It reminded me of those faux inspirational quotes you can make and it made me laugh. Otherwise than that, it’s well-made and pretty ambitious for a small band such as this to go straight for a music video. Not sure how much making one costs, but it’s probably not pennies. All-in-all, DIREGOD‘s debut singles (“Out!,” “Silvertongue,” and “Bringer of Light“) are all solid, even if I just concentrated on the first mentioned. Their debut album is scheduled to come out February 11th, 2022, and I’ll definitely going to have a good long listen to it.
