(DGR reviews the third album from Canada’s Dissolution, released in April 2014.)

There probably isn’t a single thing that ignites the self-righteous music fan’s fury more than the “for fans of” sticker that will often grace the front of their favorite underground bands’ CD releases. Rarely, we proclaim, is such a thing ever right — those other bands have never even gotten close to my favorite band’s genre, or their sound. It pigeonholes them! And why in god’s name do all of the stickers say, “For fans of The Black Dahlia Murder?!”.

We then usually shake our fists at the sky and go outside and download the thing from Itunes anyway.

However, and I preface this with some hesitation since I have been known to rage on the “for fans of” sticker myself, they do occasionally get it right and nail a band right in the wheelhouse of their sound. It’s a bit too reductive of a practice, but considering that the labels have a split-second to capture someone’s attention in a record store, I can see why it is done.

I open this review of Canada-based death metal band Dissolution’s newest album Natural Selection with such a musing, because this is a disc that I can easily recommend to people via the “for fans of” sticker method. Do you enjoy Carcass? Have you missed The Absence during their seemingly endless break? Because if so, then do I have the album for you. Continue reading »