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Desolated

The Birth Of Corruption

Written by: AP on 24/12/2010 16:59:16

What better way to celebrate Christmas than to spend the long winding hours leading up to the evening's feast listening to stomping beatdowns? Desolated, a band with whom I struck acquaintance in Southampton, are a self-proclaimed DIY death metal slash hardcore band, which, in my book, translates to textbook deathcore. As such, the band makes no apologies and takes no shame in creating music angled for the pit - an approach that had even a diehard cynic like me convinced in the live setting. It was some of the heaviest, most confrontational stuff ever to cross my path, its incessant brutality bordering on self-irony.

But the inevitable consequence of writing music that facilitates the maximum amount of two-stepping is that it sounds far less impressive on record than it does live. Having observed the band close-up, I know they are more than able musicians the lot of them, but that impression does not fully translate on "The Birth of Corruption". This debut album traces the early footsteps of Job For A Cowboy, except with the priorities reversed: where symptoms of a technically driven band were already profuse on JFAC's earliest work, Desolated have tuned down their instruments even lower, written their riffs for even lower frets, and included even more staggering breakdowns with a very high frequency.

Sure, the music, with all its triggered bass explosions, has all the weight and impending destruction of an anvil at terminal velocity, but when applied through the safety barrier of a pair of speakers or headphones, the element of threat present in the band's live shows disappears. At the same time, the fact that Desolated do not clearly differentiate between their riffs, chugging and breakdowns means that on the whole the songs sound less annoying than, say, those of Whitechapel, where the contrast is sharper and the transitions more pronounced. "The Birth of Corruption" is simply a continuous outlet of brutal force with extremity delineated in its very structure.

Call me a hypocrite for bashing bands like Impending Doom or Chelsea Grin for doing the same, but Desolated oddly manage to not come across as a gang of visionless retards. In acknowleding that their music is far from visionary, it is ultimately the band's self-awareness that comes to the rescue and allows the listener to take "The Birth of Corruption" at face value. I suspect that had I not seen this band live before casting upon their album though, the motivation behind it would probably have escaped me, and my opinion would probably have been influenced by a human's natural resistance to torture.

Download: Verendellen Martyrdom, Atrophy, Falsification
For the fans of: And Hell Followed With, Fallen Figure, King Conquer
Listen: Myspace

Release date 26.03.2010
** Unsigned band **