Sunday, October 20, 2013

Dead Bread - "Hatred Slice" (2013)

Self – released demo (July 13th 2013)

Line – up (2011):       Janick Klausen – vocals;
                                    Matt – guitars/bass/drums.

Location:                    Poznan (Poland)

Better song of the EP:

“Call Out”.

Better feature of the band:

Its great capacity to inject an apocalyptic atmosphere to the music.

Ultimately the zombie themes are very frequent into the art in general, especially as concern both the cinema and the videogames, in the hope to innovate a genre that was fashionable during the ’70 – ‘80s, when there were great directors like John Romero or my compatriot Lucio Fulci to scary the people. Now, this tendency is common to the music too, the great return of old – school death metal is a good example of that, but there are some angry death metallers that want to faces the zombie in a modern way, and Dead Bread (explicit moniker, of course!) belong to this last category. Despite the very strange introduction…

In fact, this first assault of Dead Bread starts with the Tom and Jerry theme! But, after this, you’ll crushed by a modern death metal incredibly full of wickedness and intensity with a good balance between the fast tempos and the slower ones. The riffing is sometimes more closes to the brutal death metal than the usual (like in “Gates of Hell”), while it is helped often by a very interesting lead guitar, able to inject to the music an horrifying and apocalyptic atmosphere, also through some solos (in this way, listen to the excellent “Call Out”, that in a certain point is even abstract, thanks to a guitar with effects). The drums ranges from violent blast – beats to some more elaborated patterns, so to help the other instruments to intensify the whole music. Instead, the vocals consist mainly of energizing and versatile growls, that are sometimes doubled, with some screams. The line vocals are very good, and I must mention the strange following feature: when there are the solos, Janick (from the Danish band Across the Ashes) sings also during them with a remarkable frequency, making more profound and wrapping the entire assault.

But the death metal of Dead Bread is also fanciful enough, considering even the various influences from different genres. By the way, the metalcore solutions are rather frequent here, especially strong mid – tempos during the last two songs of the EP. In fact, I could definite the music as deathcore, all the more so because “Hatred Slice” was reviewed into webzines based on that specific genre. Secondly, there are sometimes vague thrash metal passages, that can be a little strange and hysterical as regard the drums (listen to “Walk the Path” above all).

I notice that “Hatred Slice” is divided between two well – distinct parts, its variety depends also to this. Specifically, its first half is characterized by more direct and violent songs with a great lead guitar work, while the second part consist of longer tracks with a more collective approach (in brief, the lead guitar is decisively less important this time, all the more so because only “Decompose” has a solo). Besides this, “Decompose” is the longer and mid – tempo episode of the EP, nay, it has even heavy doom metal passages here and there.

Concerning the production, it’s dark and menacing but audible at the same time, the instruments are well – balanced between them. I must say it is very close to the production of “Symptom Cult” of the Greek band Vermingod, that I reviewed more or less one year ago. Both the bands vomits a similar apocalyptic atmosphere, also if Vermingod is a pure modern death metal band.

Okay, this EP of 4 songs per 15 minutes circa of destruction is very impressive, maybe its second part is less effective than the first one but, in this period where I am reviewing (almost) only old – school stuff, “Hatred Slice” is a good variation. Besides this, Matt shows again the excellent health of the death metal scene of its country, and during the next weeks I’ll review also the black metal split, completely Polish, between Non Opus Dei and Morowe. What eat the Polish children at breakfast? Bread and fuckin’ metal?

Vote: 80

Flavio “Claustrofobia” Adducci

Tracklist:

1 – Gates of Hell/ 2 – Cell Out/ 3 – Decompose/ 4 – Walk the Path

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