Review by Maciek on January 7, 2013.

From the first sound of this album I realized I was missing this kind of music for some time now. It begins like one of old Theatre Of Tragedy albums, around "Velvet Darkness...". Calm keyboards with female voice in the background with a kind of My Dying Bride narration. And this is the kind of atmosphere from my favourite MDB albums - "The Light At The End Of The World" or "The Dreadful Hours". And maybe some Cradle Of Filth resemblance as well.

The vocalist Mikko can do both clean vocals as well as powerful growling, reminding slightly of Mikael from Opeth and Black Metal shrieks. There is everything what I liked about Doom Metal bands in the 90s - a mixture of Anathema, Paradise Lost, MDB and old TOT albums. Amazing return for me to those years. You can find some calmful passages with classic guitars, keyboards, violins and really well executed Death Metal blasts. Obviously lyrics are typical for a Doom bands, so you can find any stories about sorrow, suffering, sadness, loneliness and mourning. There is no flaw in any melody line, it clearly shows that on their fifth album this Finnish band has reached perfection in their productions. The band extracted the best elements from masters of Doom, Death and Black Metal and created an engaging album which keeps you glued to the speakers. There is calm 'This Cut Is The Deepest', slow without any growling, but also 'Hate, Lead The Way!', a completely Black Metal track. And 'Cathedral Walls' was definitely a track, because of which I wanted to hear the whole album, partially thanks to Anette Olzon's guest vocals (which by the way reminds me a little of Liv Kristine). There is a video available for this track.

All in all an awesome album consisting of the best elements of Doom, Death and Black Metal. 10 tracks and over an hour of great music - would you need asking for more?

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 10
Atmosphere: 10
Originality: 8
Production: 10
Overall: 9

Rating: 9.4 out of 10

Review by Lawrence Stillman on October 9, 2024.

Sometimes you come across a band or project that has everything figured out right from the start, and you begin to wonder if the composer had clairvoyance during the band's creation. Well, this band is one of those examples; their debut already showed tonnes of promise and laid the foundation of the sound that their later albums would adopt. Ranging from the keyboard elements here to the bright and sunny-sounding guitar melodies and its progressive elements. This album sounded closer to a fusion of Jester Race and The Gallery compared to their later stuff, but with all their pitfalls fixed and executed better, like how a progressive melodeath album should sound.

Even with the aforementioned fusion and patches, do not expect something similar to Jester and Gallery cobbled together; instead, treat this album like its own separate entity that just happened to take influences from both. The short song lengths only serve to conceal the myriad sounds and melodies the album possesses; it is a simultaneous assault of guitars, drums, and keyboards, with the occasional vocals chiming in and giving the song more power. But what sets this album apart from its two sequels are the metalcore breakdowns, which I really dislike (you should already be alerted when the genre tags have metalcore in them). The breakdowns here are even more numerous than their sophomore (with the third album shedding metalcore elements completely), but do not let that dissuade you; it is still a very good melodeath album full of interesting Maiden-esque melodies and solos that still sound heavy and fun.

The guitars here sound unusually sunny and cheerful, but at the same time, they can also sound very heavy and dark with the assistance of keyboards. In theory, I should really dislike this album because I criticize the same thing in Jester Race, but the cheery guitars never overpower the soundscape all the time, and instead, they serve as a contrast to the darker parts enhanced by the sorrowful keyboards. This is what I wished melodic death metal could be: using Maiden-esque leads for bright and cheerful sections while building a contrast where it leaps into musical darkness.

Speaking of keyboards, one thing I would like to point out that really gave this project its identity among the sea of bands that are progressive metal is that the keyboards here serve more of an atmospheric and background role instead of a leading role. It sounded closer to a Dream Theatre and Iron Maiden keyboard instead of the electronic-sounding keyboards that were popular when this album came out, but this is not to say the keyboards completely avoid the electronic sounds too; they are still present, especially in the intro track (the rest of the album does not have this). We usually see keyboards in metal albums picking either electronic, prog, or symphonic sounds, but this keyboard is different; instead, it implements all three types of keyboard sounds, giving this album (and its two sequels) a richer and more unique soundscape. See what I mean when I say Japanese metal bands are very prone to experimentation and genre-busting?

The songwriting here is also excellent, but not in the usual way of "every song sounds different and unique". While the quoted sentence is still correct, my focus is instead on how the album foreshadows its future albums. For example, the last two songs foreshadow the lead riff of the very first song on their third full-length, and considering it was five years before that album even came out, you can already see just how much Mr. Sweden has planned for his projects, but at the same time, playing the same riff here in the last song makes it sound very different from what it would sound like in the third full length. There is more foreshadowing in this album for RCEG's future works, but where is the fun if I spoil you on that?

Despite this album having some flaws that can be hard to overlook, like the buried bass and a bigger presence of metalcore breakdowns (drum machine is not the problem here; extreme metal is very niche in Japan; it's likely that the band tried to find a drummer but failed), Dimersity 01 is a promising look into what beastly entity RCEG would grow into within five years after this came out. This one is definitely for fans of albums like "Nebularium" or "Purgatory Afterglow".

Highlights: 'Die Bravely Today','From The Deepest Space','Sigh Of The Void','Like The Sleeping Beauty'

Rating: 9.3 out of 10