aaamusic | On 14, May 2012

A new little project in the music world is the British record label Believe Revolt. Where would you start recruiting bands for your new label? In the obscure land of avant-garde jazz? In the plethora of indie rock/pop bands growing here and there? No. The revolt believe in metal and The Dead Wretched is their first signed band. On Believe Record you’ll find a question: – Are you ready for The Dead Wretched? Right. Are we? As I said last year about techno music, again I need to confess that my little brain aren’t engaged with this music genre. My ears maybe can’t bear the machismo of the bloody noisy guitars and the painfully ranting screaming vocals. I might be a pussy, true. But, as always, I’m very curious to push on play and see what happens. (well, as many of us, in my teen years I owned few Iron Maiden records).
First of all, the band. The Dead Wretched is a five piece band from Newport, South Wales formed from the ashes the Boys With X-Ray Eyes: Ben Duffin-Jones (Vocals), Dario Cozzi (Guitars), Robert Horsfall (Guitars), Scott Edwards (Bass), Phil Edwards (Drums / Vocals).
Aiming to change the Welsh metal music scene, they went straight in studio with famous producer John Mitchell and their debut album Anchors Down’s 10 tracks were done.
I push on Play on my iTunes. All I expected happened. A grave explosion of heavy slamming guitar, aggressive beating drums and the hardly understandable grating voice. Ain’t Through With You By A Damn Sight is exactly all you want for your dose of modern metal. The breakdowns, the choruses, the complex riffs. The anger seems to increase with the single second track Hammer Death, where the tempo changes and the lead guitar melody in the core of the song give a special emotional impact to the whole composition.
The album continues on the same path of heavy sounds and coarse passionate vocals. Hedron Collides to a profane man like me seems a very well crafted tune with the slow start and ghostly voices coming for afar, before the violent shattering angst explodes.
A genuine record, played and sang with heart and rage.
You know when you read the news and you see how bad is the shit out there? That’s exactly the time to play this loud.
Tracklisting
1. Ain’t Through With You By A Damn Sight
2. Hammer Death
3. The Wretched
4. Anchors
5. The Hopeless
6. Hardon Collides
7. Hell Out Of Dodge
8. Aces And 8’s
9. Heads Set To Roll
10. To The End

★★★★★

Pietro Nastasi

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Call me not in the mood, but there is something profoundly wrong with this record. Yet another product of the South Wales rock scene, The Dead Wretched play metalcore so indebted to Bring Me The Horizon it’s fascinating, everything from the guitar sound to the ridiculously histrionic lyrics seems to have been nicked wholesale from the polarizing Sheffield quintet. In fact, the only two things don’t seem to have been pinched from are, first and foremost, that polarizing factor. The only people who will despise this album or be shocked by it will be people who have never been exposed to heavy music before, everyone who has, this writer included, will greet this album with a resounding meh. The second part is a ridiculously limp pirate gimmick that extends to a couple of vague lyrical references to the “Seven Seas”, the cringe-worthy cover art and the album title. So, on paper The Dead Wretched are precisely one part Alestorm and four parts Bring Me The Horizon, have they written a good album? No, but it gets a lot closer than it should.
For most part the album sounds like bog standard lowest common denominator metalcore that wants to sound “Brootal”, but can’t quite commit to it in the long term, and so the albums biggest problem rears its head. The chorus’ are lazy, three note monstrosities that couldn’t be more tacked on if the listener had to put in new pins every third listens, truth be told it almost wouldn’t be as bad if the actual metal parts didn’t have the potential to be pretty damn good. The breakdown of closing track To The End is a masterstroke of whiplash inducing heaviness and Aces and 8’s displays some actually rather intelligent guitar work that manage to signal the chorus and the verses themselves without the vocals ever changing. It’s just a shame that those are the only two moments on the album that stand out, everything else on the album sounds like Suicide Season without the ferocity or the sneering, arrogant swagger that the album had in spades. Case in point opener Ain’t Through With You By a Damn Sight starts with discordant guitars over pounding drums leading into a heavy propulsive riff and singer Ben Duffin-Jones screaming like he stubbed his toe on a landmine, it should at least get your attention but it all seems so ordinary, so bland. Say what you want about BMTH, given the chance most people will, but at the very least they get your attention, when a song of theirs is played it at least forces you to judge it, most tracks here could pass by completely unnoticed to any metal fan.
I won’t say that there isn’t potential here, everyone on the record can play the fuck out of their chosen instrument and they can put down a pretty snappy metal track when they feel like it. The most likely explanation is that like, say, every band ever, they need to grow into what they do to put forth something truly great. Unfortunately that doesn’t excuse this album from being nothing special at all; if you really are a metalcore connoisseur then The Dead Wretched might be worth checking out live but otherwise, this is maybe worth one listen, then leave well alone.

★★★★★

Will Howard