My perception of this album has changed quite a bit since the first time I spun it. At first I was blown away by the heaviness. The production is absolutely filthy bringing the guitars and percussion somewhere underground, somewhere damp and devoid of light where monstrous crags shift and quake. The vocalist is trapped down there somewhere suffering and struggling desperately to climb toward the surface. And with that description I'll gladly give Dualitas the title, "Heaviest album of 2010."
But when I started delving into the lyrical content and the artwork of the album, it shed it's initial brutality in favor of something more intelligent. In the liner notes under the lyrics for every song is an explanation of what each song is about. I've never seen anything like this before and although I generally believe good music to be interpretive and appreciate it when the same music can mean something different to different people, it's certainly refreshing to see exactly what these tracks represent according to the musicians who created them. Boiling the explanations down, this album is about being able to identify the shallow nature of popular culture and distancing oneself from it in order to grow as a spiritual individual. Needless to say I was not expecting this sort of content from the lyrics. I was expecting dark meaningless imagery mixed in with words that sound good when growled, which is what most death metal lyrics are comprised of. What I got was a message these musicians are obviously passionate about; a message that they want their fans to absorb and learn from.
This evolution from bludgeoning brutality to intellectual enlightenment is why Dualitas is worthy of your undivided attention and why it's here in my 2010 list.
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