Review by Saxy S for Upon Stone - Dead Mother Moon (2024)

Someone once told me that melodic death metal was a dying genre. Perplexed, I asked how can that be because I was listening to plenty of melodic death metal bands at the time, but then that friend told me to look at the names of those bands again; how many of then were "true" melodic death metal and not a hybrid into metalcore or progressive metal? And they were right! Melodic death metal as a unique entity in the 2020s has lost so much of its identity since its Scandinavian infancy. It's time for someone to bring the genre back to the way it once was.

Enter Upon Stone, a fairly new L.A. band that looks to put the "death" back in melodic death metal. The sound of their debut, Dead Mother Moon is very inspired by Children of Bodom. The riffing quite memorable and has a strong presence of clarity. Because the record does not bend and runs a complete runtime with harsh vocals, the clear guitar leads are essential as they carry this records main drive and it sounds pretty good. And the record does not borrow too heavy from thrash by transforming into a guitar soloist wank fest, although the leads and solos sound technically impressive. 

All of that being said however, the albums bonus track is a cover of a Misfits song, "Dig Up Her Bones". I think this track can give us some deeper insight into Upon Stone's influences: one is that they are really nostalgic for old school, classic punk/metal sounds. The Misfits are pretty self explanatory, and the melodic death metal sound through the rest of the album is right out of the Scandinavian school of Children of Bodom, At the Gates and perhaps even early Amorphis. The other insight is that, despite their love of European melo death, they are still an American band and they should take advantage of this when releasing new material in the future. I'm not quite sure how they would do this, since the American melo death sound is just melodic hardcore at this point, but maybe Upon Stone can carve their own path in the future.

If that is the case, then I would like for them to do it with a better producer. The intentional reverb throughout the record does sound nice and nostalgic, but we could easily do away with that mix piercing snare drum. There were several instances; I first noticed them on "Onyx Through the Heart" as well as "The Lantern", where the percussion is really busy and keeping a fast pace, and the snare drum is just constantly going and it was actively distracting me the rest of the way. There were times in which I would get completely lost and would not have been able to hear anything else. Perhaps this is just a personal issue, but if these songs were great and my review poorly represents those tracks, I wouldn't know because all I can hear is SNARE SNARE SNARE SNARE SNARE!!!

As of this moment, I can see where Dead Mother Moon works well; it sounds like a well oiled machine that has spent a long time listening to its influences, and is now attempting to bring them into the modern age, without resorting to tired metalcore trends crossing over into death metal. The counterpoint is that Dead Mother Moon may represent another band whose philosophy is "mEtAl wAs SO mUcH bEtTeR 20 yEaRs aGo" and would rather retread the path of giants instead of creating a new one. 

Best Songs: Dead Mother Moon, My Destiny; a Weapon, To Seek and Follow the Call of Lions