I have to admit, my expectations weren’t to awfully high for this. An English tech-metal/deathcore band on Earache, but Fetish actually ended up being a surprisingly solid release that will appeal to fans of recent releases by Burning the Masses, Within the Ruins and such.

Straddling the line between atonal, grinding, spazzy, metal, tech death metal and crumbling deathcore, TBWB also infuse some melody and experimentation into the mix and the end result comes across a little like The Dillinger Escape Plan meets Despised Icon or early Ion Dissonance and Between the Buried and Me. Admittedly, on paper that mix does sound like sheer chaos, but somehow, TBWD pull it off impressively and never really force the issue or try too hard be death metal or grindcore, instead letting everything fluidly battle in out within the songs.

While nothing on Fetish is particularly original, there is a certain energy and voracity within the music and the vocals. And the production is more raw and loose than many of their overproduced, clicky peers mentioned, resulting in a more relaxed yet organically feral sound. As. You’d expect the chaos tends to bleed together, and unfortunately as is the M.O with the genre, when the band do deliver a nice hook, solo or riff, it’s short lived (i.e. “Apollo’s Lyre”, “Dead Girls”, “Akura Class”). The chaos is occasionally broken up by a few moments of ambience (“Josef Fritzl”, “Elisabeth Fritzl”), but for the most part the album staggers, blasts and careens with noisy unpredictable abandon, but yet with a smidgeon of restraint here an there (“Barrymore’s Pool Party”, excellent delicate tangents of “Suis La Luna”).

Despite hailing from the craggy metal depths of Norwich, TBWD slot in nicely with the current crop of mainly US based, like minded acts and the current younger musical climate and should only get better with age and experience.

[Visit the band's website]

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