Die So Fluid

I’ve been super anxious to get my hands on this latest release from Die So Fluid. In fact I ordered a copy from the U.K. because I just couldn’t wait for the North American release in late May 2008. This album brings the band to a whole new level of sophistication and production quality. They obviously set the bar very high when they were working on these songs, making the long wait between albums well worth it. There is a smorgasbord of musical styles to be found here, and somehow the band has managed to combine them all within the songs and actually make it work incredibly well. They must have used every ounce of knowledge and experience that they have gained over the years to create this metal masterpiece.

The opening track starts off with a jazzy sounding little riff that is quickly crushed by a full out metal barrage of bass and guitars. This song, along with Vorvolaka and 'Throw You Away' are actually epic in nature, with 'Throw You Away' even having a string section and being close to seven minutes in length. This is not to be construed as to mean boring by any means. There is so much excitement in these songs, with truly exhilarating shifts in mood and energy.

As usual, Vocalist/bassist Grog sweeps you away with her passionate, emotion filled voice, easily shifting from melancholic to mystic to metal. She has tons of power, and manages to deliver flawless vocals while also playing some pretty complicated bass lines. This woman is incredibly talented, and she is also responsible for all of the sharp, poignant lyrics in the songs. Really, I think that Grog’s vocal melodies are to die for.
I am really impressed with the caliber of song writing. I have to give kudos to guitarist Drew Richards and drummer Al Fletcher for their efforts as well as Grog. After each song would end, I found myself wondering what they could possibly do next to keep things going at the same level of excitement, and they would somehow pull out another trick and impress me even more. The songs on this album have a huge sound. There are complex song structures that almost border on symphonic power metal. 'Pigsy' is incredibly powerful and emotional, with guitar tones and riffs that remind me of one of my favorite bands of all time, Human Waste Project. And yet despite all of the sophistication, there is always a wonderful earthy rawness to the songs, largely due to Grog’s vocal style and Drew’s punk edge . And not all songs are written on a grand scale. The song 'Something to Say' is pure punk, albeit very high quality punk. I think 'Happy Halloween' is a standout song, perhaps because it has the catchiest melody. It’s the one song that I find keeps repeating in my head, but that could be because I’ve watched the video so many times! I think the vocals on 'Halloween' are particularly outstanding though.
The album ends with the title track 'Not Everybody gets a Happy Ending.' This is a rather melancholic number, with very powerful vocals delivered by Grog. The song makes for a very interesting epilogue to the album, and gives the album itself an 'Unhappy Ending.' I felt completely satisfied at the end of the CD, like I had just finished eating a great meal, with no room left for desert. This album is a brilliant step in the evolution of Die So Fluid. I don’t know how the heck they are going to top this on their next release, but I would be very content if they even matched the quality of this release. I have to give them a 10/10 for this CD, they really deserve it for all the effort and care they obviously put into it.
- Femme Metal Webzine

Say hello to the London trio that want you to throw off those rose-tinted glasses and tread them to pieces, dancing in your hi-tops…done that? Right, now get down on your knees…


Die So Fluid are a band who successfully fuse pop sensibility with hard-hitting metal…knuckle-husking punk attitude with infectious ethereal melodies. They are a band, who after just releasing their second album 'Not Everybody Gets A Happy Ending', are hungry to carry their evolved sound to all corners of the planet, letting nothing stand in their way. With them, you'll be taken on a journey, in which you'll realise the end holds no real golden ticket or trophy, but simply it's the getting there and revelling in the fight which counts…

As far as journeys go, this isn't the band's first…"Grog and I had been on a previous musical adventure but we didn't really respect the opportunity we'd been handed until it was too late to save it" guitarist Drew explains… "Those times are all a bit blurred now because of all the drinking and substance abuse that was going on. Then Al arrived like a messiah in the midst of rock and roll Babylon and, because he's such a focussed and clean living, individual, inspired us both to take ourselves more seriously. He was like "what you playing that shit for? Don't you listen to Hawkwind?"
This time around, the band are setting themselves no limits or boundaries musically, and in essence, this is what makes Die So Fluid's sound so fresh and immediately raw, they're not trying to accomplish something they know people will love and buy out of familiarity, nor are they going to walk out onstage or into the studio and give you forty-minutes of what sounds like Amy Lee and Chad Kroeger bumping uglies to a Cradle of Filth record... "We're fearless" says Drew. "…I think a lot of metal bands get penned in to a very tight spot because they worry what their peers think – are they heavy enough, are they fast enough, do they sing about Beelzebub enough. We don't roll that way. If I've been inspired by the sound of a French new wave record from 1981 I'll use that inspiration, and if Grog wants to dress like a mirror ball she will too."
The band are also fearless when it comes to re-constructing album songs for their live performances, "We jig things around to fire us and the crowd up, or just so songs glue together in different orders. Recently I had to disappoint a guy in Birmingham, who saw us for the first time, by telling him that the recording of 'Kiss the Floor' didn't have a two minute guitar solo…Fortunately for him the live DVD is out later this year."
Onstage the energy pours off the London trio like a wave of gasoline, parting deadly lips with three lit matches. They take a knife and carve blood-red lines into the air, the parallels between reality and imagination haemorrhaging into one another in a raging ocean of sound. As if intravenously, and never without a grin or a devil-horned salute, Grog, Drew and Al feed off one another, spurring each other on in a blaze of charging knives-out anthems and twisting sonic spirals. However, their communication with their audience always remains consistent, as conviction and sincerity bleeds with every riff, beat and scream, Die So Fluid are quite aware that they are putting on a show for you, a relentless but fun performance, refusing to let you take your eyes and ears off them for a single second.
Vocalist Grog's stage presence alone is impossible to resist in arrest, she is a cat-suit-clad Valkyrie who's thrown off her armour, picked up a bass guitar, and learnt how to face her own battle field, on which her victories and losses are laid out like towering corpses, screaming and purring seductively in the chase.

On both 'Not Everybody Gets A Happy Ending' and the band's debut 'Spawn of Dysfunction', her lyrics twist and coil like a leviathan through a regurgitating tide of demons, taking you on an entirely different journey which sees monsters such as zombies, vampires and werewolves all shape-shifting into societal, emotional human flaws, and vice versa. Grog finds beauty in the world's defects and illustrates them in a way in which they become a live menagerie of both the threatening and the curious, physical creatures not beyond your imagination's reach. You can see them, hear them and feel them the minute your gut wrenches in synchronicity to her words, pins and synesthsia, identifying with her enemies as heartache bares its fangs and draws its bloody sword…"Songs are like magic to me, because it's a process of creating something from nothing, and with this larger than life, fantastical imagery I can capture my demons, possess them and make them controllable for everyone else too...like cartoons! I've always felt the need to create, and writing songs, to put it at its bluntest, is a transformation of the ugly into the beautiful. It's my way of turning the seemingly stagnant, desperate or useless things you would most often bury or try to forget - Alternativemag.co.uk