Artist: The Red Shore
Title: Unconsecrated
Type: Album
Label: Siege of Amada
I didn't know anything about The Red Shore, but then again I am the wrong side of 25, I don't wear horn rimmed glasses or have a ludicrous shoulder length comb-over. My backpack is long since retired, and I don't wear chequered slippers. All of which is a round about way of saying that I am sufficiently old to dislike bands like Job For a Cowboy, Bring Me The Horizon (which actually hurt me to type) and their ilk. The Red Shore, my somewhat hipper (you should see the size of her hips) sister tells me are quite “the thing” on MySpace. They are Australian. They are a -core band. Christ.
Actually, Pete (who sends me these CDs) did warn me not to judge these boys on the basis of their haircuts. I ain't no Vidal Sassoon myself, so I have tried to approach this from as an objective a capacity as I can. Actually, The Red Shore have had their fair share of tragedy, losing two band members in a devastating crash in 07, and they also peek my interest by being a band with a heavier bent from Australia, which aside from Psycroptic, Blood Duster and Destruction 666 really hasn't produced much in the last ten years which has made much of an impact on me. I was more surprised when I actually put my prejudices aside and listened to the CD. Before I get to that though, a little about the release itself. A double disc effort, this has the album and a DVD included – the DVD a history of the band with some very touching moments as the band members recall their mates death and subsequent funerals. A brave thing to release with your debut album, but a worthy addition to the package. There is also a live show to watch, which showcases the death metal influence on their music. They might be sporting the dodgiest haircuts since the late eighties, but they know how to work an audience.
In terms of the album itself, it wears its heart on its sleeve. A less charitable reviewer might well make reference to it being a deathcore album, but to my ears, for intents and purposes, this is a technical death metal album, and all the better for it. Yes, there are duel vocals and those dizzying guitar passages that all you young folks are so keen on, but the drumming and main riffing owes rather more to Hate Eternal than it does to any band likely to be scrawled onto the back of a school kids back pack. Opener “The Garden of Impurity” epitomises the approach taken by the Ozzy mentalists: take the back bone of a song, add technical sections, pour on some technical sauce and then sprinkle on some technicality. Seriously, this is some of the most insane complicated death metal that I have heard since Yattering, but there is just enough memorable song writing to ensure that brutal riff-fests like “Deception: Prologue” will be in your mind long after the CD stops playing. It's new school death metal then, complete with some chunky old breakdowns thrown into the mix, but don't let that put you off. Rather than being some ego-wank for the (clearly) talented musicians, they put the song before the show-offery. Stirring, and surprisingly good stuff. I were right about those haircuts though...(cue Yellow Pages music)...
http://www.myspace.com/theredshore
Chris Davison
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