This should be an easy review to write. I got this album well over a week ago and since then it has been played at least once a day in full and many times piecemeal. Is it acceptable in this day and age to write one-word reviews? would it be enough just to write “awesome!” and have done? Sadly, for those of you who suffer on a repeated basis my excessively lengthy diatribes, it seems that the curse of excessive verbiage must strike again as I guide you through an album that has, for me, rapidly become one of the musical highpoints of my year.
Produced by Russ Russel, apparently the go-to-guy for all things heavy at the moment, the first thing that hits you between the eyes is the clarity and power of this latest release. From the down ‘n’ dirty bass line which leads into first track ‘Anarchogram sun’, to the astonishingly versatile vocal attack via the taut guitar lines, everything sounds crystal clear and imbued with power. Of course, no production in the world can save a bad set of songs, but over the course of forty-odd minutes, The Rotted display a song-writing nous time and again that somehow allows them to combine the most extreme of sounds with a crushing addictive edge that will leave the tracks flying through your head long after you’ve finished playing the album. There is quite literally not a bad song here, not a dull moment or wasted riff. Indeed, the overall feeling is that The Rotted have tapped into a rich vein of creativity and musicality that has them on the form of their lives. Highlighting that restraint is at least as powerful as abandon, if not more so, the riffs are tight and lean, with devastating blocks of sound unleashed strategically, giving the songs a bruising weight and allowing the vocals plenty of room to breathe. As ‘Rex Oblivione’ in unleashed you get the curious sensation of this is what Napalm Death playing Metallica covers might sound like. It’s furiously, insanely heavy and yet instantly memorable although nothing more so than the truly excellent ‘surrounded by skulls’ which couples strikingly intelligent lyrics with a chorus that stamps itself all over your brain with a steel-toe-capped size 13 boot. With a bridge that allows the first slight drop in tempo, it is a track of light and shade that couples savage riffs with guttural roars and deft switches in mood and style to devastating effect. All in all ‘awesome’ would probably have been a fair summary!
‘Non serviam’ is another track that pulls off a deft switch somewhere around its mid point. Starting out as a fearsome groove of the type that sees half the mosh pit leave with whiplash, it suddenly mutates into a blazing thrash track that will leave all but the terminal sweating and bug eyes with excitement. Darker and thoroughly more malevolent is ‘just add nauseam’, a furious, grinding assault that has a chorus to die whilst Nate Gould plays like a human octopus throughout. Next up is ‘entering the arena of the unwell’ (a title which I dearly would like to believe is a direct reference to Withnail and I) a similarly brain destroying assault that allows guitarist Tim Carley to shine. My money, however, is on the discordant brutality of ‘the house of bedlam’, a track that comes complete with the perfect shout-along chorus for the live arena and which sounds almost punishingly heavy. Another strong highlight is the lyrically brilliant ‘Apathy in the UK’ a searing look at the way downloading and laziness has stripped humanity and passion from a scene for which those words are integral to its survival. A thought-provoking track, it also happens to be a brilliant piece of music of flesh-stripping metal and for those of you concerned about the message it espouses, it’s being released as a limited edition 7” through Hammerheart records.
The final third of the album sees the band unleash the metallic rock ‘n’ roll of ‘Motorbastards’, a great tribute to uncle Lemmy and a chance for the good Reverend Trudgkill to unleash his bass with a power sufficient to shake the planet to its very core. ‘The hammer of witches’ opens amidst a welter of screams and sludge riffs torn straight from the gaping mouth of hell. It is as imperious and brutal an entry as you might wish for and as it finally hits its stride you find yourself trapped in another almighty groove with a monumentally memorable chorus – try as you might you will not get this record out of your head for weeks to come. Unpredictably the final tracks eschews speed and instead ‘put me out of your misery’ sees The Rotted hitting Vallenfyre-esque levels of sludge/doom darkness with a blistering intensity that could strip the blackened paint from your walls. It is a fine, unexpectedly powerful close to an album that was already damn close to perfect.
With sterling performances from everyone involved, ‘Ad nauseam’ is a resolutely old school record that demands every drop of attention. This isn’t background music or something to dip into via your IPod shuffle, this is a masterly display of musical versatility that should be enjoyed from its first crushing moments to its final, hope-destroying chords. At forty minutes it harks back to the days when records were prepared for vinyl rather than CD length and the result is that there isn’t a dull moment, not a repetitive riff or over-egged track in evidence. Nothing is wasted and the band seem hell-bent on cramming as many ideas as possible into each and every song whilst maintain an enviable coherence. From the preamble alone you may have gauged that I love this record – it is one of those metal albums that you just know you’ll return to time and again from the very first time you hear it. The surge of excitement that flairs when you first here the punk-influenced bass run into ‘Anarchogram sun’ does not diminish until the CD has ceased to spin and if you’re not reaching for the remote to start it all over again then you’re probably clinically dead. This album may have appeared on the stage late in the day but this is easily in the top ten of albums released this year, and up again some pretty stiff competition too – The Rotted have just unleashed a masterpiece.
