Choosing to issue a series of EP’s to satiate the appetite of Dialith followers after the outstanding support for their 2019 album Extinction Six, Atrophy is the first of a projected three EP’s that keeps the four-piece symphonic metal act glowing. You’ll get three new songs plus a short interlude which continue to showcase these musicians’ adaptability at the wide array of power, symphonic, progressive, and extreme influences that they can inject from song to song to keep ears abuzz, heads banging, and astute followers captivated.
The interplay between these musicians and their obvious technical proficiencies allows them to easily go from a mid-tempo power anthem opener like “Ignite the Sky” – and then follow things up with a more progressive effort that contains melodic death/blast beat sections against natural symphonic orchestral/Symphony X textures for “Sweet As Wine” where guitarist Alasdair Wallace Mackie rips out an impressive lead break that fans of the Amott brothers or Michael Romeo would bow down to in reverence. Drummer Cullen Mitchell flexes his extreme speed abilities during the opening sequence for closer “Undertow” – another sweeping rollercoaster of an effort where vocalist Krista Sion showcases a bit of her rock edge in the verses and operatic highs during the chorus. The subtle shifts of heaviness and tranquil parts as well as the stop/start aspects and proper orchestration against the natural instrumentation makes Dialith’s sound. Even though it’s a bite-size portion of material at sixteen minutes and change, the band are very comfortable in terms of growth and experience to create a style that is quite melodic, catchy, and entertaining while circling around their affinity for many sub-genres outside of their symphonic metal base.
Do not sleep on this New England band – much like Seven Spires, they have all the tools, promotion, and promise to develop an extensive catalog of recordings that possess the right finesse/musicianship balance to further the following onward and upward.