Gorerotted - A New Dawnfor the Dead

Wed 6th Jul, 2005 in Music Reviews

A New Dawn For The Dead is the new release from UK death-metallers Gorerotted. The band has evolved since their last release (2003’s hilariously titled Only Tools and Corpses), in the sense that there is a slightly more melodic bent to the proceedings and an abundance of grindcore.

The album has toned down the lyrical hilarity of previous releases (intended lyrical hilarity, I might add), but the album titles are still great, with gems such as Nervous Gibbering Wreck, Dead Drunk and Horrorday in Haiti. This is further proof to the uninitiated that death metal artists do not actually take themselves too seriously.  It’s all good, corpse-filled fun.

This album IS darker than previous releases, and gives the feeling that Gorerotted want to break out of their niche. Production-wise, this album sounds a lot crisper and this does the tracks a great service.

Another main difference is that vocalist Mr Gore (he of the almighty scream) is no longer in the band, so vocals have been passed on to Ben ’ Goreskin’ McCrow and The Wilson, who is also the bands bassist. The vocals are a bit trying at times, alternating indecipherable, low growls with high-register extreme vocals in a way that comes off as being a bit all over the shop during some tracks.

A New Dawn for the Dead begins in the most kick-arse of ways. Opening track And Everything Went Black is hands down one of the best of the album. From the word go, it tears it up and assaults your eardrums in the wonderful way that good death metal can.

From there on in it is 34 minutes (yes, a rather short album) of mayhem, madness and much-appreciated metal fun. Vocals aside, the musicianship on this album is pretty good. For all the mad double-kicking and frantic death-metal guitars, there is an undercurrent of melody that has been absent (at least to such an extent) on previous records. I’d say that the musical expansion is a fair exchange for the humour that played a bigger role in the other releases.

The short tunes definitely do this album justice. There are no epic songs to be found on this album, which keeps it fresh for this genre, and makes the chaotic listening experience more enjoyable.

I am quite impressed with this release. Gorerotted have proven that they can fuse together their trademark death metal tunes with a grittier, grinding sound and warrants them as a force to be reckoned with in the extreme metal scene.