Review Summary: While getting a little confused with the genre, there's not much that can be said about this sold, yet repetitive album.
GODMAKERS
The Red Death
Ferret Music
Release date: 22 January 2008
There is a fine line between overdone and ‘just-nicely done’ deathcore. The Red Death don’t quite fall into the ‘just-nicely done’ category, but neither do they fit as overdone. 'Godmakers' is the band’s second LP, following their 2005 Metal Blade release, 'External Frames of Reference'.
Actually, it’s pretty tough to label this quintet as deathcore, because although their sound is pretty much a mix of metalcore and death metal, some aspects of their music fit perfectly into metalcore, while others into death metal. This may sound confusing, but the bottom line is, they’re a good mix of both, though not quite being a true blue deathcore band. Phew, that was a mouthful.
Vocalist Paul Hamblin utilises mostly close to metalcore-style vocals throughout this record, with death grunts and growls being absent. Musically, breakdowns are non-existent, so it’s pretty much non-stop action from beginning to the second last song, with the title track providing a slight break in the middle of the album, which features some acoustic guitars, muffled drumming and some sound effects here and there. Final track "Passengers" stands at nine minutes plus, but in actual fact is only three and a half minutes long. There is close to four minutes of silence, before suddenly a ‘voice message’ pops up, apparently for bassist Jordan, in which possibly a friend speaks to him about missing a show with the band (with plenty of ***s during the message).
The instruments perform fairly well overall, with the guitars mixing scarce melody with some technical riffs in the lower register. Though the drumming is sold, it’s the patterns which get fairly monotonous by the time you’ve listened to "Regression", which is possibly the most memorable track off the album. Bass is also barely heard as expected from average bands of this genre. The adrenaline is definitely pumping all the way, but there can be a lot more ‘useful’ adrenaline in this case, where the listener would really, really be dying for more instead of simply listening more.
"Regression", kicks off really well with a catchy guitar riff, before the drums take focus and the vocals come in strongly. The second verse features a really cool part, where all instruments except the lead guitar and drums stop, in order to give Paul his chance in the spotlight, before the song goes back into top gear. "Static Divide" is another pretty strong song which at one point gives the bass to shine for a few moments, but unfortunately for the band after awhile most of the tracks sound too similar, not helped by the stale and overused style of Paul’s vocals.
On first track "Eternal Now" there is a sudden section in the bridge which had my ears interested, as the instrumentation actually bore slight resemblance to technical metal band Meshuggah, with the subtle rhythm, layered by the ‘off-beatish’ sounding lead, with the drums also quieter than normal.
So, is this album a rip off? Not quite. But can they do better? Most definitely yes. A little more diversity in style of music as well as vocals will surely see a much needed improvement in time to come from The Red Death. Until then, 'Godmakers' does just enough to please on a few listens, but not too many.
Rating: 3.5/5
