Band info
Band: Dibikad
Album: ‘1960‘
Released: December 25, 2024
Genre: black metal
Location: Canada
Review
We have been graced, in these short years since we started ABMN, to be able to talk about many important issues through the bands we have partnered with. The genocide in Palestine, the effects of climate collapse, the strikes and daily issues of industrial workers and the exploitation of the world in general, the continued fight of women, non-white, LGBT+ and other oppressed people for survival, and many others make us feel like it is worth it to keep on the effort of this channel (and believe us, it is no small effort for those involved). Yet today’s subject brought forth through the first EP by Dibikad (“night”, in the Ojibwe language), is special for the reviewer in charge of it, because it was in May 2021, literally the same month ABMN came forth, they came in contact with it: the issue of oppression of Indigenous Canadians, particularly through what is known by the euphemistic name of “residential schools”.
A detailed analysis of those veritable concentration camps, where indigenous children were kept from their peoples, forced to abandon their languages, and often abused and exploited to death, is beyond the scope of this review, as are the reactions of the remaining peoples to the discoveries of thousands of unmarked graves of those children on the “school” grounds in Kamloops and beyond; suffice to say, the wave of churches burned in the wake of the discoveries was FAR more understandable than anything those Inner Circle idiots did in Norway.
Dibikad‘s furiously direct black metal is very good at delivering those feelings, not just through the rawness of the guitars and drums, but also in Donovan Gawitaiash‘s pained vocals. The lyrics are a punch to the gut, as the last stanza of “Missing” demonstrates:
“I am murdered,
I am not missing.
Can’t speak your languages
I am not alive”
Other links and platforms:
BC: https://dibikad.bandcamp.com/album/1960
IG: https://www.instagram.com/dibikad.bm/