UMUR "Dahmer" is the 3rd full-length studio album by US, Illinois based death metal/grindcore act Macabre. The album was released through Decomposed Records in October 2000. It´s the band´s first album release since "Sinister Slaughter" from 1993, and although they did release the "Behind the Wall of Sleep" EP in 1994, it´s still been quite a lengthy recording break. They´ve spend the break well though, researching the story of infamous American serial killer Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer and composing the music to go along with the gruesome real-life tale.

Thus "Dahmer" is a concept release featuring 26 tracks, and 52:12 minutes of music telling the story of the life of Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer from his early childhood, building shrines from the bones of roadkill, to his first murder of a Hitchhiker when he was 18, to his short army time in Germany where he ended up being dishonorably discharged as a consequence of his alcohol abuse. The story then goes on to tell how Dahmer is charged with child molestation. He didn´t serve time for the crime (he received a probation sentence) and soon moved in with his grandmother and began taking young gay men home, drugging them and killing them. There´s also a song about the short time he was kicked out of his grandmother´s house and stayed at the Ambassador Hotel where he also killed a man.

Around the middle of the album Dahmer moves into his own apartment and that´s when his killing spree really takes off. Quite a few tracks tell how he drugged his victims, killed them (most were strangled but some died from having hydrochloric acid or boiling water injected directly into holes in their skull that Dahmer had drilled while the men were drugged), dismember them (while taking pictures of the corpses in sexually suggestive positions at various points in the process), have sex with various parts of their dead bodies (including their severed heads and viscera), and eat them. But also details of how he disposed of their remains (some where dissolved in acid and flushed down the toilet). He kept quite a few parts for a skeletal alter he was contemplating building though, and also severed heads and other body parts he would use for masturbation. There´s also a song on this part of the album which tells the story of the poor 14 year old boy who escaped Dahmer´s apartment, but in a bizarre chain of events ended up being escorted back to the apartment by the police and handed over to Dahmer, who was able to convince the police that the drugged boy was his 19 year old lover, whom he had just had a domestic fight with. Nothing but bones were left of the boy, when Dahmer´s activities were finally revealed.

The last part of the album concentrates on how Dahmer was captured (one of his intented victims fled his apartment and contacted the police), the ensuing media circus, the trial, Dahmer becoming a born-again christian in jail, and finally his murder at the hands of another convict...

...and that´s pretty much the story contained in the lyrics save for a few details. Stylistically the music on the album is unmistakably the sound of Macabre. The "core" elements of their sound are drawn from death metal, grindcore, and thrash metal, but the band add many other elements from various musical styles to their music, which ultimately makes the overall style a bit hard to tag. There are for example a great deal of hardcore punk influences on the album (tracks like "Grandmother's House" and "McDahmers" are basically punk songs done the Macabre way), a track like "Jeffrey Dahmer Blues" is as the title suggests a heavy blues track, "Coming To Chicago" is Macabre´s bizarre version of the folk traditional "She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain", "In the Army Now" features parts of the melody from "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" (an 19th century American civil war traditional), "Grandmother's House" features parts of the melody from "Over the River and Through the Woods" (another 19th century traditional), and "Jeffrey Dahmer and the Chocolate Factory" is Macabre´s version of the "Oompa Loompa" song from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It may sound a bit silly to use children´s tunes and folk traditionals on an extreme metal album, but I assure you it has quite an impact when paired with the unpleasant lyrical subject matter.

It´s not all tracks on the album which feature "alien" elements, and there are several pretty extreme and relatively more "straight" death/grindcore tracks on the album too. The whole album is one long highlight with no sub par tracks and an overall great tracklist flow and the quality of the material is high throughout. So it´s a bit unfair to mention some tracks over others, but I still think tracks like "Hitchhiker" (that chorus is damn heavy and infectiously catchy too), "Exposure" (probably the most grindcore oriented track on the album, and it´s delightfully extreme), "Scrub a Dub Dub" (great heavy track with yet another catchy chorus), and "Temple of Bones" (heavy, heavy, and heavy riffs and rhythms) deserve a special mention.

If you´re familiar with the preceding releases by Macabre, it should come as no surprise, that the musicianship is on a high level on all posts. Especially drummer Dennis the Menace (Dennis Ritchie) is an incredibly skilled musician. There´s something very special about his drumming which drives the music forward most effectively. It´s like his drums roll and even the most awkward breaks and changes in pace sound natural when he plays them. His performance on this album cannot be praised enough. The guitar and the bass (which are both placed quite high in the mix) are also well played, but in addition to the great drumming, it´s the vocals on the album which take the prize. That part of the album is varied to say the least. That´s not unusual for Macabre, but it´s like they perfected the vocal part of their sound on "Dahmer". The vocals on the album varies from deep juicy growling, to brutal and aggressive growling, to high pitched screaming, to varies types of clean singing. The different types of vocals are often used to emphasize something in the lyrics, which is a slight stroke of genius to my ears.

So "Dahmer" is in every possible way a high quality release. The songwriting is varied and memorable, and the lyrical concept well chosen and executed, the musicianship are on a high level, and the Neil Kernon production is powerful, detailed, and raw. The perfect sound for Macabre´s music. In terms of musical development since "Sinister Slaughter (1993)", the band have taken giant steps and a 5 star (100%) rating is deserved.

Nightfly A strange one this for sure, quite unlike any death metal album I’ve heard before. Dahmer, the third album from Chicago band Macabre is a concept album based on USA serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Pretty grotesque subject matter for sure but Macabre inject plenty of humour into their deathgrind/death metal. Having only heard one Macabre album that I don’t remember previously and that was some time ago, it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting.

The humour not only comes in the lyrics but also in the songs the band choose to bastardize from time to time adding their own lyrics to tunes taken from some unexpected sources. The Oompa Loompa song from Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory is Jeffrey Dahmer And The Chocolate Factory here. There’s She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain which is Coming to Chicago and Jeffrey Dahmer Blues is…well… er… a death metal blues song. While this all sounds a bit silly the band are actually pretty good players though the vocals might be an acquired taste for some alternating between a typical death growl and high pitched screech. Most of the songs are pretty short with many under the two minute mark but they make up for this with quantity, there being twenty six tracks in total. Quantity doesn’t equate to quality of course and it’s a pretty mixed bunch. The afore-mentioned parody songs soon wear thin. I mentioned earlier that the band are decent players but some of the songs are a little over simplistic with their riffs lacking substance but then they’ll throw in a surprise by injecting some jazz touches into the pot. The albums at its best musically when they put the quirkiness to one side and play it straight, relatively speaking of course, like on How ‘Bout some Coffee and I like the dissonance on Bath House and Konerak as well as the jazzy touches they throw in from time to time.

Unfortunately the production is a bit on the thin side with a top end heavy drum sound though it is clear but lacks power. Something else that robs it of some of the power is guitarist Corporate Death when playing a solo often plays it with no rhythm guitar backing which momentarily causes it to lose some drive.

Overall then, full marks for originality, approaching it with humour and the concept flows well. What lets it down sometimes is simply that there are quite a few songs that just simply aren’t all that good, lacking strong riffs that have to rely on the humour to carry them. Whilst it’s not an album I’ll be in a hurry to return to, though everyone should hear this at least once, I am curious to check out their other albums to see if they display the same humour and originality as this one.

Vim Fuego Concept albums often have very dark stories and themes behind them. Queensryche’s “Operation: Mindcrime” deals with heroin addiction, assassination and insanity. W.A.S.P.’s “The Crimson Idol” is the story of a rock star dealing with the loss of his brother, his own alcoholism, the emotional distance from his parents, and his eventual suicide. “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son” is possibly a concept album, or possibly not, depending on which member of Iron Maiden you ask, but it does cover clairvoyance, foreseeing death, madness and the meaning of dreams. All these pale in comparison to Macabre’s “Dahmer”.

“Dahmer” is particularly shocking and achingly dark because it is a true story. This album follows the tragic true story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer from screwed up childhood to eventual rather messy death. Dahmer’s life and crimes are particularly famous because the brutality and perversion behind the seventeen murders he committed caused a media shitstorm like no other serial killer in history.

This album kicks off with “Dog Guts”. Why? Because a young Jeffrey Dahmer loved playing with dead animals. Second track “Hitchhiker” covers Dahmer’s fucked up teenage years, culminating in the murder of a hitchhiker in 1978, his first victim. Macabre is well known for sticking the odd nursery rhyme into their music, and there’s a few on show here. “In The Army Now” and “Grandmother’s House” steal the tunes from “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and “Over the River and Through the Woods”, lightening the grim mood somewhat. “Coming To Chicago” borrows from “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain”, which is a truly disturbing sing-along about cruising gay bathhouses, looking for victims to fuck, photograph, kill, photograph, fuck, mutilate, fuck, disembowel and finally fuck again. Another borrowed tune, “Jeffrey Dahmer And The Chocolate Factory” has the immortal lines “Oompa loompa doompity dah/Jeffrey loved eating/Men from gay bars/And he lived in happiness too/Like the Oompa Loompa doompity doo”. Oompa Loompas don’t seem quite so innocent after that.

Dahmer tried to lobotomise several of his victims, in order to acquire a zombie sex slave, but kept messing up the operation. The song “Konerak” describes how victim Konerak Sinthasomphone managed to escape during this process, but through some of the most inept police work of all time, the cops returned him to Dahmer, and in doing so, missed seeing a decomposing body in Dahmer’s apartment, and all that was ever found of the the Thai teenager was a few bones.

As you can imagine, there’s nothing progressive or operatic about “Dahmer”, as is often common with concept albums. It’s a death metal record, but like Macabre’s previous two albums, it’s not exactly an ordinary death metal record. Macabre’s style of death metal has always had something of a cult following, rather than really breaking through into death metal’s mainstream, possibly because these guys enjoy a laugh. “Jeffrey Dahmer Blues” for example, is a swinging blues song, topped off with a solo by producer Neil Kernon. “McDahmers” is an anthem for cannibals everywhere. “Into The Toilet With You” hits a tech-death rhythm, while describing how acid dissolved flesh was flushed down the toilet.

Of course, there would have been no Dahmer, no court case, and no album unless Jeffrey was caught. “Media Circus” covers Dahmer’s arrest, using the cheerful circus music melody. “Temple of Bones” describes the macabre (no pun intended, no other word really fits) construction of skeletal remnants police found in Dahmer’s reeking charnel house apartment, along with dissolving body parts, filleted human flesh in the freezer, and putrefying bodily remains.

The song which sets this album apart from all other concept albums, and all gore themed metal everywhere, is “Trial”. Guitarist/vocalist Corporate Death (Lance Lencioni) is quite serious in his obsession with serial killers, and actually attended Dahmer’s trial. “I waited in line to see him/Through the bulletproof wall/In the courtroom/And I had a seat in the front row/To watch Jeff like a circus sideshow/Ten feet away, the cannibal displayed”. This is taking research to another level, and short of interviewing Dahmer, or becoming a victim, this is as close to the source material as it is possible to get. Reading the lyrics, describing how Lencioni was only 10 feet from Dahmer is chilling.

Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in 1994, almost bringing this entire tragic episode to an end. Final song “The Brain” covers how Dahmer’s father wanted his son’s preserved brain destroyed, which it eventually was.

This whole story is told in a coherent manner, never losing its narrative thread, yet most of the songs can be listened to in isolation without sounding strange. Well, no stranger than usual, considering this IS Macabre after all. It’s gory and gruesome, both musically and lyrically, and it stands up well to repeated listens. As far as death metal concept albums go, “Dahmer” is unique, the perfect mix of brutality, humour and true life horror.