The Black Dahlia murder returns after some major hardships in the past few years. I hate to add to those hardships because this new album “Servitude” does not feel like a band who is ready to come back after a hard endeavor. This album feels half cooked, repetitive, and seems to lack any original ideas. The biggest problem is the lack of innovation it feels like. There never was really a song or part that stuck out. Yes, the songs are heavy and fast, but they all blend together and can easily be rearranged, and you couldn’t tell the songs apart from one another. Out of 10 songs, only two of them seem good or have a unique feel to them. The song “Mammoths Hand” has a bit of a prog feel to it, so it feels refreshing and more fleshed out. The rest suffer from being okay to just sounding too similar to one another. The guitars are one of the biggest offenders on this album because the riffs all feel the same for the majority of the album, especially the solos. They put a guitar solo in every song (besides the short and kind of pointless interlude), and they all sound the same and drag for way too long, it feels. The guitars at times do sound strong for a bit, like on “Servitude” or “Mammoth’s Hand,” but for the most part just feel mundane. Also, at times the riffs remind me too much of Dethklok, so the band feels a bit silly and generic. The bass at times feels a bit beefy but just kind of sits there and doesn’t really resonate in you that much. They do an okay job of sounding okay on “Asserting Dominion” or “Panic Hysteric,” but really not much outside those songs. One thing on this album that is consistently decent is the drumming. They are tjght and sometimes have some good fills to help breathe life into the songs like “Aftermath” and “Cursed Creator," which help redeem these songs a bit with their dynamic playing. Then there is the elephant in the room, the vocals. On the opening song “Evening Ephemeral," the vocals are pretty similar to those of their ex-vocalist but a little different. Hit sounds like he is trying too hard to emulate their old vocalist. The vocals feel like they get better as the record goes along and feel more of their own by the end of the album; however, with all the other bland and repetitive sounds, the vocals kind of get forgotten a bit. The pacing of the album is quick, which is nice because you can easily get through the songs without too much worry. The production here is another aspect here that isn't bad. The songs all sound really good and nothing really sounds to low or drowned out. It just feels they are trying really hard to make something happen here, but you just get the same song over and over, okay? This album It feels like Dahlia is trying too hard to be Dahlia, and so it all feels off.