When a band changes their name, it’s usually for the worse-usually a shift in style to be more acceptable, commercial or just downright not metal (see Covenant, Cemetery, … And Oceans, etc). However, the UK’s Gorerotted, after 3 fairly mediocre, stylistically undecided albums, decided to start anew and change their name to The Rotted. The also they replaced guitarist Matt “Robin Pants” with John (Gian) Pyres (Cradle of Filth, Solstice, Extreme Noise Terror, etc) and switched out drummers. The end result is a definite positive and The Rotted now have become a far more credible and beneficial act to the UK metal scene.
With a nasty, far more classic grindcore, crust and punk lean than their previous offerings and less forced gore or humor themes, The Rotted sound nothing like their prior iteration and now carry a more Napalm Death, Righteous Pigs and Misery Index styled grind with slicing power chords and a savage catchiness that elevates the band far into the UK’s metal hierarchy. The visceral tone and pace of the album is pretty relentless for its 38-minute duration (except for interlude “A Brief Moment of Regret” and the closing cover track, but more on that later), and each song has enough memorable bite to warrant multiple listens.
Tracks like blistering opener “Nothing But A Nosebleed”, crafty restraint of “A Return to Insolence”, “Kissing You With My Fists”, “Angel of Meth”, superbly named “It’s Like There’s a Party in My Mouth (and Everyone’s Being Sick)”, and absolutely ferocious penultimate track “Fear and Loathing in Old London Town” deliver sneering, short sharps stabs of power chord, sometimes thrash infused, grittily produced mayhem that’s a fetid, filthy and deadly as the back streets of Whitechapel in the late 1800s.
Also of note, at least for me, is the band’s foreboding take on the 28 Days Later soundtrack, (specifically John Murphy’s brilliantly tense “In the House-In a Heartbeat” theme), an English band covering an iconic English movie theme seems fitting and I haven’t heard an effective movie to metal translation since Thy Disease rendered ‘Last of the Mohicans’; Superb, even more so if you are a fan of the film and its soundtrack.
Should Napalm Death call it quits ay time soon, it looks like a suitable, and more importantly English heir apparent is waiting in the wings.
[Visit the band's website]Find more articles with 2008, E.Thomas, Metal Blade Records, Review, The Rotted
Comments
Leave a Reply
Great review of a good album, though describing Mutilated in Minutes as “mediocre” seems a little harsh. Corpse-fucking Art is a masterpiece of modern death-grind, and the rest of the album is almost as good. Only Tools and Corpses is pretty good too.
on Aug 3rd, 2008 at 13:37eh their enjoyable mediocre albums. ya know what the vocals kinda come off a bit metalcorish but its a good disc and very memorable.
on Aug 3rd, 2008 at 14:43Wow. Big raps for this one. I’m keen as hell to check it out. The previous albums were just a bit … meh.
on Aug 4th, 2008 at 20:23i agree with this review. recently i saw one that kind of trashed the album – i think its quite good, actually.
on Aug 7th, 2008 at 21:56Wow – this was a really surprising album. They took a massive turn for the better. It’s so much more … ‘mature’ seems the wrong word given the lyrical content, but musically it’s streets ahead of what they’ve been doing up until now.
on Aug 10th, 2008 at 23:59