This Divided World

The Missing Pages

When a group joins the “core” genres, there is a proverbial checklist of things they must do: breakdowns, double bass, breakdowns, maybe some keyboard work, melodic choruses … What does This Divided World bring to the table, then? Everything on that checklist. Yup, TDW is pumping out good old fashioned deathcore and infusing it with the gospel of Jesus.

The mastermind behind the studio deathcore group is Micah Brill, and he pulled no punches on this sophomore release. The group’s debut release, When Darkness Reigns, was a pretty stereotypical deathcore piece. Other than the fact that all the instruments where done by Micah, there wasn’t really anything very unique about the release. With their sophomore EP, The Missing Pages, TDW has come with one huge punch with a different vocalist on each track, including Shannon Low (The Order of Elijah) and Thomas Hirst (Creations), to name a few.

The record starts out immensely heavy with “The Words I Should Have Said,” featuring Low. The album slows from there, and the third track, “Hell,” featuring Hirst, is the slowest point of the record. “What Has Been Seen Cannot Be Unseen” took an interesting turn when Brill tapped Samuel Stephens (A Body Divided) for vocals and put a really strong atmospheric background to the track. The final song on the record, “Curbstomp the Devil,” is a really good throwback track for the band bringing in Matt (the only vocalist on When Darkness Reigns) to do vocals, bringing the instrumentals back to what we saw on the first record.

This Divided World doesn’t really stand out too much in the sea of deathcore bands. The music is pretty generic and gets a little repetitive, but the addition of some crazy, heavy atmosphere and the varying vocalists does give the album a dynamic edge.

What this band does do that very few deathcore acts do, though, is bring the gospel into a genre that desperately needs it, and that screams louder than the music ever could.