Wretched

Son Of Perdition

Written by: AZ on 30/03/2012 01:02:53

How do you define “heaviness”? What metal band can be considered as “heavy”, especially nowadays when every band can climb the ladder between “just picked up the instrument” and “master class” in a couple of months and abortions of different size, speed and skill are produced and destroyed daily? Well, technical skills are earned the way computer games are played – you just have to continue doing what you do until you know everything by hand. Ideas, however, can't be self taught. Ideas are experiences, mental state and an overall mirror of the person in general.

Wretched grabbed my attention with an instrumental from their last album “Beyond The Gate”. A strange mix between words like slow, soft, dramatic, insane, guttural and brutal may be appropriate for what follows. Yes, the band from Charlotte, North Carolina steps up with a release that aims to tear down the world, cause chaos and mass destruction – behold “Sons of Perdition”.

Epic intros are a way to play it safe – keep the Armageddon-like theme and stay on the “dark side”. Sadly opening an album in such a way doesn't always give a guarantee that the follow-up will be up to level. However the band, formerly known as And Since Forgotten, simply explodes in the ear as a black time bomb sucking all the life around. Picture yourself in the desert with black roots coming out of the ground, pulling you in faster than quicksand but just slowly enough for you to agonize painfully. This impression is all that's left after Marshall Wieczorek's solid double-bass and Adam Cody's skull-scraping screams unite. Guitar duo, Steven Funderburk and John Vail, and bassist Andrew Grevey just utilize what is already prepared for them by shredding the f*ck out of their instruments. Harmonies, dissonance chords and odd time riffs are carefully sculpted in order to stretch the evil grin of the hell-spawn on the cover even further.

As if wishing to oppose all those bands that try to break the listener's head with those “same old, same old” riffs accompanied with a deep growl and/or a high pitched scream, the band says “To hell with it!” by putting three complete instrumental parts in the middle of the album. The “trilogy” goes under the name The Stellar Sunset of Evolution Pt. 1, Pt. 2 and Pt. 3. A bold attempt that achieves its goal – show true musician sense and fearlessness towards criticism.

I must say that I am quite pleased with the latest effort that “Wretched” put out. Strange as a monastery at the peak of a hill, bright as daylight, dark as dusk, painful as the thousand deaths in a sacrifice pit. As a side note, I am happy to see that there still exist bands that go for a simple “Genre: Metal” on their profiles, skipping the “Vegetarian Progressive Grindcore” stuff and throwing themselves straight into the pit, head first in search for something exciting.

7

Download: Imminent Growth, At the First Sign of Rust, The Stellar Sunset of Evolution Pt. 3
For The Fans Of: Daath, The Faceless, The Black Dalhia Murder
Listen: Facebook

Release Date 26.03.2012
Victory Records

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