If the cat wasn’t out of the bag before, it sure is now: Despised Icon are French Canadian death metal wiggers. Whether in the comments section of their eye-popping video for the captivating title track of their latest album “Day Of Mourning” or on messageboards all around North America, this is what the Montreal-based, modern death metal pioneers are increasingly being referred to by both fans and critics alike. As the old saying goes though, if they’re talking about you, it’s usually because you’re doing something right. In Despised Icon’s case, that something tends to be testing people’s limits of tolerance for a band that is breaking down barriers faster than some critics can accept their demolition. And it’s not only in the case of Despised Icon’s over-the-top merging of upstate N.Y. slam-death in the vein of Pyrexia, Skinless, and Internal Bleeding with ferocious hardcore like First Blood, Buried Alive, and Hatebreed; an abrasive if not dazzling brand of crossover which by now anyone remotely involved in the heavy music scene is more than familiar with. If the mere fusion of street-style, hip-hop fashion cues with claustrophobic, paranoid, extreme metal is enough to cause a shit-storm to rile the masses, they are obviously doing something very fresh. The last time fashion codes in the modern death metal were examined, Dying Fetus and Misery Index, the bands who are perhaps Despised Icon’s two most prominent influences, wore baggier clothing than their single most successful descendant. If we are to earnestly address the issue of real vs. fake among metal bands, and accept that metal is meant to be an anti-follower and anti-poser movement, then what type of clothing is reflective of individualism and lack of concern for the prevailing trends? If most bands insist on wearing black and growing their hair and beards out, while the young men in Despised Icon prefer a close shave and adorning themselves in sharp Ralph Lauren Polo shirts, hardcore basketball jerseys, and baseball caps cocked slightly up and to one side, who are the true followers, really? Besides the fact that dressing sharply is statistically proven to attract attention and interest from the female gender thus likely scoring Despised Icon more backstage betties than their kvlt-clothed contemporaries, proudly boasting mainstream fashion appeal is likely to spread the music of Despised Icon, and therefore the under-appreciated genre from which they derive, much farther and wider than your average deathcore band can bring it. While the self-interested death metal underground and young metal fans unsure of themselves alike will pick a bone with anything that doesn’t fit the mold, Despised Icon have already become not only ambassadors of the death metal genre, but a gateway band for an increasingly fashion-conscious underground youth to open their minds to such severe and vicious music. Despised Icon are essentially devils in sheep’s clothing, rather than devils in devils’ clothing, so to speak. But enough about how they dress, let’s get down to this here new record of theirs, “Day Of Mourning.” To call it the missing bridge between 2005’s “The Healing Process” and 2007’s “The Ills Of Modern Man” would be somewhat reductionist. What is true, and what is sure to please the band’s multitude of hardcore rooted fans, is their insistence on reincorporating direct, mosh-worthy hardcore into the mix perhaps more than ever before. So if Despised Icon haven’t already pissed off the elitist and prejudiced death metal fans who enjoy the Montreal band’s music in secret, “Day Of Mourning” is sure to make their blood boil even more violently. Yet Despised Icon’s death metal and grind influences are as razor-sharp as ever, one of the band’s calling cards on which few if any other bands or critics can debate their prowess.