Deadsoul Tribe – A Murder of Crows (20th Anniversary)

Devon Graves recently announced that he is working on a new Deadsoul Tribe album and it managed to wash away some of the disappointment that Psychotic Waltz will no longer tour. Of course, the situation that led them to this decision is more important than me seeing them perform. Psychotic Waltz is an underrated band that never got the attention they deserve, in my opinion at least, but Deadsoul Tribe was even more niche, and while they were active the music press didn’t seem to love them, partly because of unrelated reasons to their music. This retrospective will look at “A Murder of Crows”, to celebrate the announcement of the band’s return as well as the album’s 20th anniversary.

What better way to start but with a hot take: Everyone knows that Dream Theater defined progressive metal in the early 90s. There were other bands playing a similar style, but apparently Dream Theater was the one that made enough people at the time see the connecting tissue between progressive rock and metal. For me though, Dream Theater (especially in their early days) always sounded more rock oriented than metal. The band that presented both these characteristics in perfect balance and it was undisputedly both “progressive” and “metal”,  was Psychotic Waltz. Unfortunately the band never achieved the success they deserved, especially in the USA which is their home country, and they had several misfortunes. The band called it quits somewhere around 1996 and Buddy Lackey, the band’s singer, moved to Austria in 1999, changing his name to Devon Graves.

While he wasn’t the main songwriter, his voice and lyrics (and occasional flute) were one of the most distinct characteristics of the band. Of course it’s not like he didn’t have any input. Devon can also play the guitar, and it is rather evident, with the benefit of hindsight, that he had a lot to do with various music and creative decisions. Those four albums that the band created reached legendary status, especially in underground circles, and for many people including myself, seeing them as objectively as possible is probably unachievable. Devon, now with a new identity in a new country, wanted a fresh start. In interviews of the time he said that he wanted to find “unknowns” from the local scene thirsty for music, with whom he had good chemistry.

And so, in March of 2002 Deadsoul Tribe released their self-titled album. There was much excitement for the return of a prog legend and it got overall favorable reviews. In my opinion it lacks focus a bit, as many debuts do, but there were some amazing songs in it, like ‘Powertrip’, ‘Under the Weight of my Stone’, ‘Cry for Tomorrow’ and ‘…Into the Spiral Cathedral’. You wouldn’t call Psychotic Waltz’s music “happy” or “uplifting”, but Deadsoul Tribe sounded somehow even darker. There were less technical showcases, something that for the time was weird for a prog metal band. Dream Theater was at the height of their career and the genre was so popular that even power metal bands adopted the prog/power subgenre, just because they had a 7 ⁄ 8 measure. Deadsoul Tribe didn’t waste time and one year later they released their second album.

“A Murder of Crows” is a favorite among Deadsoul Tribe fans, usually winning first position over “The January Tree”. Contrary to the debut, this lack of focus is non-existent anymore and the band seems to have found the sound that fits them perfectly. Special mention should be given to the amazing artwork from Travis Smith, who has worked on all of their albums. The album opens with the aggressive but mellow ‘Feed pt. I: Stone by Stone’ which directly goes into ‘Feed pt. II: The Awakening’. It starts with flute and it’s a mid tempo dramatic track. The band adopted, even from their first album, some gothic influences though they seem unintentional. There’s an overall gothic aesthetic rather than playing with techniques similar to gothic rock musicians. Maybe it’s just Devon’s voice: While he doesn’t sing in low registers, his voice will make you start crying, even if he sings the phone book.

My favorite part of the album is around the middle with ‘In a Garden Made of Stones’ and ‘Some Things you can’t Return’. ‘In a Garden Made of Stones’ starts aggressively with Adel Moustafa’s tribal drumming and chords that evolve into a stressful guitar riff that becomes the main theme. All this tension suddenly stops as the song goes into some melodic verses. The verse restrain the tension which is released with ease when the first chord of the chorus starts. The song seems to talk about urbanization and the alienation it creates. ‘Some Things you can’t Return’ is one of my favorite songs ever, a haunting mid tempo track. When the chorus starts it’s virtually impossible to stop yourself from screaming the lyrics. The monotonous syncopated bass line throughout the song creates immense tension, while the comparatively sparse guitar notes provide ample drama and the drums keep the groove going. A Masterful arrangement!

Deadsoul Tribe’s music is rarely fast, but it is groovy, mellow and aggressive in its own way. There are some amazing tracks in this album, like ‘Angels in Vertigo’ and the three closing tracks, ‘Flies’, ‘Black Smoke and Mirrors’ and ‘Time’. In each of these tracks you can find a variety of styles, mixed with a very distinct sonic signature. The experimentation is subtle, it never interferes with your listening session. In short, there are no points where you’re wondering if one of the tracks is from another band in an unrelated style, every foreign element is integrated in their sound. This might seem less impressive to a surface listener. You see, it provides much more spectacle if you can impress music nerds because you suddenly sound like a charleston band. Deadsoul Tribe don’t even try that, they prefer to be consistent.

In those 12 tracks there’s not one that you would call mediocre or filler. However, it feels a bit much. Maybe the emotions the music creates makes it hard to listen to the whole album throughout. You can cut up to 4 tracks and the album would be equally impactful. Even if you cut my two favorites, you still get a very good album. Of course this was during a time that music labels preferred 12 or more tracks. However, I find this to be a regular occurrence in Deadsoul Tribe’s albums so I’m not sure who to blame.

A critique that the band was taking at the time was that some people believed that Devon Graves had teamed himself with “inferior musicians”, compared to him and his Psychotic Waltz bandmates. This was somehow connected with the fact that Devon recorded pretty much everything himself, except drums. Deadsoul Tribe was more of a solo project than a band, at least in the way that most people understand how bands work. While Adel had, according to him, some contribution to the music, the rest were hired musicians for live shows. It is important to understand the context, as this was happening while we were seeing the start of the nostalgia bait era: bands were reuniting with their classic line up, and while nostalgia tours weren’t a thing yet, those bands were focusing a bit more on their classic tracks, with some of them pretty much erasing their in-between era. In my opinion, this had at least an effect, even if it wasn’t the main reason Deadsoul Tribe never got more attention. While I understand the fact that Psychotic Waltz at the time was considered a legendary band of the past, and there were enormous shoes to fill, I totally reject the comment about “inferior musicians”. It is fairly evident that the point of the band was not to create a supergroup consisting of the best musicians ever, but rather the love for music making and a way to fulfill Devon Grave’s unstoppable creative urge. It should be noted that this was my personal experience as a 20 year old in greece. These were the early days of the internet (the before facebook time), so any information on how people from other countries reacted was scarce. In any case, it seems that those people might be the boomer gatekeepers of the time.

I saw them during the tour for “A Murder of Crows”. There was an evident problem with the hardware they were using for the pre-recording tracks and the band missed a few spots so Devon stopped the rest of the band a couple of times and he was trying to conduct them. For me it wasn’t such a problem to be honest, it felt like an open rehearsal and it was a very warm event, despite Devon’s obvious frustration. The next time I saw them, in 2006, it was an amazing show. However, the club was half full and most of the people were sitting in the back, waiting for the band to play any Psychotic Waltz numbers. Devon informed us that he was talking with the rest of the band about a reunion which was exciting for many people, but as he said he wanted to “keep his band”. That didn’t really happen, they only released one album in 2007, a total of five.

Despite some complaints here and there, “A Murder of Crows” actually gave a good boost in the band’s popularity, and while they never gathered a huge crowd, I happen to know several musicians who were influenced by them. Psychotic Waltz, and by extension Deadsoul Tribe, always had more followers in Europe. The album, as most of Deadsoul Tribe’s music, don’t include intricate guitar riffs, chords difficult to play and other prog metal tropes. You could say it is very basic on a technical level. According to Devon Graves, they weren’t interested in being a progressive metal band, more like a heavy rock band. I guess when your previous band is a prog metal legend and you are signed to InsideOut you get promoted as such. There are certain expectations when you promote something as “progressive metal” and many people didn’t find the usual instrumental masterclass. Those such as myself who didn’t care about that though, they discovered some amazing enchanting music. Actually, the fact that such good music could be created with such simple tools was a huge eye opener. Deadsoul Tribe became one of those bands going against the stream of the prog culture, trying to play something actually original. It seems like time has been pleasant with the album, as you can find several contemporary reviews praising it as a masterpiece.

The album made the “Psychotic Waltz vs Deadsoul Tribe” question relevant. And even though it’s a stupid question, the fact that the question was there means a lot about Deadsoul Tribe’s quality. The band managed to maintain the momentum with their next album “The January Tree” (my favorite from their catalog), though their next two albums were less successful. Devon Grave’s contribution to Ayreon’s “The Human Equation” might have helped a bit with their popularity, even though the music of the two bands is quite different. After Deadsoul Tribe was disbanded, Devon Graves released one album with The Shadow Theory, including Kristoffer Gildenlöw (ex- Pain of Salvation) and Johanne James (Threshold). Psychotic Waltz finally released their new album in 2020. On a video posted on his YouTube channel, Devon Graves explained that after Psychotic Waltz’s decision to not tour anymore he thought of creating a new Deadsoul Tribe album, as he had some new songs in his mind that they didn’t fit in Psychotic Waltz. He met with Adel and his drumming gave Devon a new perspective on his own music. The new album will apparently be different from both of the bands and the line-up will change (only Adel will remain from the original lineup). So, hopefully soon, we will be able to hear some new material, and maybe enjoy live performances of these amazing Deadsoul Tribe songs.

I asked Devon Graves for a short comment about the album. He shared the following story:

“I wrote most of a murder of crows over a three month period in total panic because of a deadline in three months, and I had pretty much zero songs. I spent all my days alone in the small “Studio“ which is really our band practice room in a cellar. I remember mixing late into the night, early morning. Being haunted by some of the samples I took from the exorcist. It was very creepy. I remember after I finished mixing the album. I let Adel listen to it and I told him ‘I don’t think this is as good as the first album, but that’s OK. Will make up for it on the next one”.

Seems like he couldn’t realize how good the album was at the time! Many times great music can be created in the most pressured situations and you don’t even realize until it’s out.

If you’ve never listened to Deadsoul Tribe, “A Murder of Crows” is as good as any album to start. The physical copies are out of print, but the albums are available on digital platforms. Hopefully this new album will make more people discover their older stuff.

Full album playlist on Youtube

Tracklist:

1. Feed Pt. 1: Stone By Stone
2. Feed Pt. 2: The Awakening
3. The Messenger
4. In A Garden Made Of Stones
5. Some Things You Can’t Return
6. Angels In Vertigo
7. Regret
8. Crows On The Wire
9. I’m Not Waving
10. Flies
11. Black Smoke And Mirrors
12. Time