TO DIE FOR: "IV"                        to/die/for                                         

    It is hard to know what to expect from band where the only original member is the singer. During the hiatus between their last album “Jaded” and this album, Jape left the band because of various reasons that were well documented on blabbermouth.net. Creative differences and conflict within the group caused his departure and during this time the band decided to split. Jape then started his own project, “Tiaga”, and in this project they wrote “Autumn Forever”, “This World Is Meant for Me” (it’s original title), “Chaotic Me”, and “No Turning Back”. Spine Farm records told the band that if they changed to To/Die/For they’d sign them to the label. Now, there is a rumor that Jape and his former drummer held the rights to the band name and Jape basically forced the issue in getting the band’s name back. After all, what is To/Die/For without his vocals? And he proceeded to punch him out. Again it is just a rumor. So, what we have here is To/Die/For with a total different band, but the same singer.

    To be honest, I probably listened to the demos to those songs a million times. I liked what I had heard so far; solid songs that have a rock feel to them but yet kept the band’s original identity. Autumn Forever starts out totally different from all the other TDF intro songs, it felt like I was at a concert and the band jumps on the stage at the last second to blow your ears off! Autumn Forever is an instant classic! The guitar riff reminds me of the autumn season and just brings an instant smile to my face. 

This World Is Made For Me has the most addictive keyboard line I have ever heard! However, it is hear where I am coming to realize that the band sounds completely different than it sounded on it’s demos and as much as I hate to type it, does not sound like the TDF of the past. This has a more metal feel than gothic feel to it. It sounds great though, no question about it. I can see this song in movie soundtracks. This song also features one of the few guitar solos on this CD. Some of the hardcore TDF fans that I have spoken with say that this is a problem, in the past, TDF would have a blazing solo in almost all of their songs and now this is not the case. No matter! 

Chaotic Me on the album sounds totally different than the demo, the drums were not as pronounced and the bass intro is almost no existent unless one had a subwoofer in their audio arsenal. Chaotic Me is a song about religion, about being Atheist which is a topic that Jape rarely touches on to be honest I am confused as to why he is singing about religion. Catchy lyrics and guitar riffs though and it is one of the best songs on the CD.  Fragmented, quite possibly the best song on the album. This song could have easily been on “Jaded”, a gothic entrance with keys and a minor descending guitar riff then stops to let Jape sing. Jape’s singing sounds absolutely marvelous in this song. The words are easy to sing along to and he sings them with so much meaning. This was the best-put together song on the album and this should have been the first single. Live In You (acoustic) was on the “Little Deaths” single. For those die-hard TDF fans who have not heard this track yet…it is well worth it. This version of the song is much more depressing than the first but yet it is one of the best love songs that a modern gothic band has ever been written. In this track one could feel the stand-up bass plucking in the background.

rating: 9/10

Matthew Haumschild

© GryphonMetal.ch   2001-2006Niederrohrdorf - Switzerland               webimpressum