The Destro’s big and loud “Fuck you!” for all present trends and cloned whatever-core bands today is actually the good ole heavier groove metal with a more death metal twist. Something unheard of? No. Is it cool? Yeah! These dudes from Dallas, Texas obviously are quite negatives as all the ways they can think of presenting their band in are by saying what they are not. Not a metalcore band, not a band that plays breakdowns, not a thrash band, either… And their first job when they were almost ready with “Harmony of Discord” was to remove all solos, half the riffs, half the songs. Only to make the entire thing more focused and more crushing.
And crushing it is. On the basic structure of groove metal with predominantly mid tempo heavy riffs and sludge moments, the band has built up with quite some death metal elements like a lot of double bass drumming, growling vocals and really a huge dose of anger. Without going into all out blast beat mode some quite fast moments can be heard in pretty much every song.
Somewhat surprisingly the album opens with its longest track – “Justifiers of Malice” which shows some really cool songwriting skills as the song goes from a crushing riff to another without getting dull. From there on the album kicks up the pace and songs like “Pestilence of Deceit” and “Anger Killer” definitely have the potential to start a pit or two. “Mouth of the Heretic” introduces some rather melodic riffing in the mix, ending up to sound like a Soulfly that doesn’t suck.
Sadly, the band may have somewhat overdone the whole stripping down the music thing, as at a certain moment the album gets quite monotone. And your desire to listen to it again is not among the strongest ever. Yes, “crushing” is the key word in regards of the guitar sound as well, and this is the driving element of The Destro’s music. But maybe they could have let some more memorable melody sneak in on the album.
Even so “Harmony of Discord” is not a release that lacks qualities and if you are into the likes of Pissing Razors and Hostility you’ll probably love this. And similar albums actually sound quite fresh when compared to the thousands of cloned bands nowadays.
Verdict: 4.75 / 6
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