Days Of Loss were formed about a decade and a half ago. During the first half of the first decade of this millennium (got it?), they self-released Lobotomy (2001) and Sleeping Gods Lie (2004) before fading into silence for a while. The band returned in 2010 with Life Is Decay (via Terrasound Records), which made it for a nomination on the Austrian Amadeus Music Award, the Austrian edition of the Grammy Awards, if you want to, and this in the category ‘Boogie’, sorry, ‘Gospel’, euh, I mean, ‘Hard& Heavy’. The attention created back then brought the band live on stage in support of acts like Suffocation, In Flames, Heaven Shall Burn or Brujeria, and Days Of Loss were able to play live in other countries too, like Switzerland, Czech Republic and Poland.
Days Of Loss then concentrated on the writing process for the new full studio album, entitled Our Frail Existence, which has a total running duration of about forty minutes. The material was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered at the Udio Media Studio (Vienna, Austria) with renowned producer Norbert Leitner, who worked with bands like Devastating Enemy, Shadowcry, Cadaver Race and his own Lords Of Decadence before.
With Our Frail Existence, Days Of Loss perform a catchy and modern form of Thrash / Death Metal, which comes with a clean (read: almost clinical) sound and an evident Trans-European approach (and then I am referring to the scenes of Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Switzerland and, of course, Austria – and I will not forget about Djibouti or Tuvalu, of course). It also means a total lack of originality, an over-catchy predictability, and compositions that combine safety with inspirationlessness.
Our Frail Existence is a collection of well-written, well-performed and well-produced tracks that, unfortunately, have nothing additional to add to the overcrowded scene. I am afraid that not one single track has something to offer that we (or at least me, myself and I) are looking for. At the same time, this is not ‘bad’ either, and then I do mean that I have to admit that it does not suck. I can’t, and won’t, say that these guys are not capable to write catchy tracks, or that these guys aren’t capable to handle their instruments. But once again: I did hear it before, a thousand times, and mostly it was less cliché-filled. Sad but oh so true…