Dead Child, Dead Child

Okay, so this one’s a bit risky: a bunch of the biggest, most revered luminaries of the once-cerebral Louisville indie scene, the folks who brought us (well, partly) math-rock, get together to form…an ’80s-style metal band, complete with pointy mëtül logo and song titles like “Black Blood Leather”? Ah. Gotcha.

Seriously, I have to be skeptical as hell about this. I grew up on metal, listening to Metallica, Megadeth, Queensryche, and the like and learning guitar pretty much so I could play that stuff (the first song my guitar teacher ever taught me, naturally, was “Iron Man”), so I’m a little sensitive about jokes at the expense of the soundtrack to my youth. When I see that Dead Child includes David Pajo (guitarist; ex-Slint/Zwan/Tortoise/Aerial M/etc.), Todd Cook (bassist; ex-Crain/Shipping News/The For Carnation), Tony Bailey (drummer; ex-Anomoanon/Lords/Aerial M/Crain), and Michael McMahan (guitarist; ex-The For Carnation and younger bro of Slint’s Brian McMahan) have formed a “metal” band, therefore, my first instinct is to assume that these guys are taking the piss. On a cursory sniff, Dead Child sure smells like an elaborate in-joke for a bunch of jaded hipsters, particularly given the recent resurgence of metal and rock in general. Oh, the delicious snark of it all — I can practically hear the music-geek blogger snickering and hi-fiving now. Heck, this could be bigger than “Bring It (Snakes on a Plane)”!

But maybe I’ve got these guys all wrong. I mean, I certainly don’t listen to just metal these days, despite my upbringing; who’s to say Pajo, Cook, Bailey, McMahan, and vocalist Dahm (ex-Starkiller, currently also in Phantom Family Halo) didn’t grow up listening to the heavier side of the rock spectrum like I did? Partway through “Angel of the Odd,” and I start to feel my cynicism ebbing away. Holy shit…are these guys actually serious about this? Lyrics about blood raining down and “Earth’s dying glow,” pummeling, crunching guitars, and nicely driving drums — put all together, this is a damn convincing impersonation of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, or hell, Dio.

“Black Blood Leather” continues in the same vein, channeling Judas Priest (complete with twin-guitar attack) with lyrics that sound like they were ripped out of the Metallica songbook circa Ride the Lightning, but it isn’t ’til the stomping, merciless “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” — the best track on here — that the secret weapon of the band really comes into his own. Sure, the guitars are unexpectedly good, and the rhythm section charges right along beside, but it turns out that singer-with-one-name Dahm (if he’s got a first/last name, I can’t find it) is the glue that holds the whole of Dead Child together. He clearly loves the same metal screamers I used to love (and yeah, in some cases, still do), coming off like a more-comprehensible Ozzy Osbourne with a handful of Dio/Dickinson wail and just a touch of Federation X’s Bill Badgley’s backwoodsy drawl.

By the time “Curse of a Legend,” with its Wrathchild America-esque chorus (in my opinion, one of the most sadly overlooked metal bands of the late ’80s, by the way), and sludgy, slow-simmering “I Will Live Again” roll around, I’m smiling and stomping my feet. If this is a joke, then it’s at least a friendly one, a playful nudge-and-wink to folks like me who still have a soft spot for guitar crunch and throat-shredding wailing about werewolves, witches, and rainbows in the dark. In the final analysis, though, Dead Child is good enough that I’m not sure my initial is-it-a-joke-or-not dilemma even matters.