Gorerotted - A New Dawn For The Dead
Metal Blade Records - 3984-14535-2 - 2005
By Philip Whitehouse
A New Dawn For The Dead is a pretty appropriate titled for British death metal mob
Gorerotted's third full-length album. After two discs of mixing tongue-in-cheek, jokey lyricism and punkish attitude with their grinding,
Regorge-on-a-piss-up style death metal, they've suddenly decided to get serious. This can be seen from the lack of a humourously violent cartoonish album cover (the album instead features artwork by Birmingham's hardest-working metalhead, Mick Kenney), somewhat less zany song-titles (although 'Horrorday In Haiti' and 'A Very Grave Business' show the group haven't lost their knack for a pun), and a more streamlined death metal assault. The result is a darker, more oppressive body of work than the quintet have previously recorded.
The vocal approach remains the same - one ultra-guttural vocalist, one who screams harshly - despite the loss (or providing a suitably aggressive voice for the sometimes-technical, sometimes pared-down death metal riffage and hyper-speed double kick drum work. One thing that has changed is an increased sense of rock-infused melody in some of the tracks - 'A Very Grave Business' features a passage around the 2:01 mark that almost qualifies as catchy, while 'Adding Insult To Injury's finger-tapping intro recalls a sort of slap-dash, enthusiasm-over-technique cousin to
Anata's dissonant riffage. The grind elements have been considerably downsized, and the overall impression is of a more serious act. The production has been adequately beefed up to follow suit, with a nice chunky guitar tone, requisite typewriter-click kicks and a somewhat dry but nicely balanced drum sound.
Sadly, one of the things that
Gorerotted have lost with this re-imagining of their sound is the endearing quality that their humourous take on death/grind lent them. With that and their punkish, knockabout attitude gone, what remains is a fairly standard (if entertaining) death metal album, generous with it's references to
Cannibal Corpse and
Carcass, but generally lacking in anything particularly unique. Fans of the band's earlier style may find that
Gorerotted have lost their charm, whilst fans of more serious death metal won't find too much to recommend them above whoever they're currently listening to.
6.5/10
UltimateMetal's interview with Gorerotted
Official Gorerotted Website
Official Metal Blade Records Website
