- Despite the seeming hopelessness boasted by their name, Dead For Ages exude a sense of urgency that is always palpable. Part of it’s the simple speed they move at: never stopping for breath as they kick on with the pummelling power of Anthrax or Slayer. It’s more than that though, all of their debut record, In Defence Of An Ordinary Life, is suffused with a sense of impending doom, like all of that energy is just what it takes to stay ahead of the reaper. You'll find your fill of lyrics like “If constancy is change, it can never stay the same and I feel a sense of sad departure.”
If a lot of heavy music is focused on angst, rage and defiance, then this record stands a bit apart from the crowd. Dead For Ages are just as full of roiling, surging emotion, but it pumps out of a vein of despair. The doom they’re wailing about is flying towards us on multiple levels, from the personal to the cosmic. You get the feeling that environmental apocalypse, late capitalism, the history of human violence and the limits of human understanding are all wrapped up in one here. The record often sounds a bit like a philosophical treatise, trying to comprehend about how we were all undone. As such it can be a bit cryptic, like the problem -unsurprisingly- is a bit too big, a bit too difficult to explain, never mind do something about.
Fortunately, much of the power and the consolation of In Defence Of An Ordinary Life isn’t achieved in words but in the power of the shred. Dead For Ages are very good at what they do. They should be too, having a long history in a number of well known Brisbane bands. The one that stands out the most -for me anyway- is The Quickening. They were shredding impressively a decade ago and it appears that, even if the world is coming apart, their playing is actually getting better with time.
For all that Dead For Ages spend their time gesticulating wildly at the oncoming doom, their finest moment arrives when it’s too late. Crushed Velvet Tombs is the band’s most personal and relatable moment and a very moving eulogy to a friend. As with much music dedicated to sadness and downfall there’s a vital element of In Defence Of An Ordinary Life that is supplied by a burning sense of camaraderie, that we’re all in this together. It comes flooding out of Crushed Velvet Tombs, in memory of someone loved and lost. “All we can leave is flowers, but we can never roll back the stone. We own the early hours, but we can never come stumbling home.” Life may well be despair, but it can be borne together. Dead For Ages are powerful witness to the fact.
- Chris Cobcroft.