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GARROTED
Of Damnation And Abyssal Terrors EP

Self-released (2018)
Rating: 9/10

Garroted formed out of Walpole, Massachusetts in 2016 and have just delivered their first EP, Of Damnation And Abyssal Terrors. The 25-minute outing is a rather Lovecraftian affair featuring four excellent numbers, three of which clock in at well over six minutes.

The style here is very much old school in design, the band providing a deathly sound but with a foundation of technical thrash prowess and black metal flecks. I tend to just call it progressive death metal. For the most part, the combo supply a mix of sneering, raspy and at times gruff vocal styles, but the music sort of jars the senses in a very late 80s manner and it remains unpredictable throughout.

Opening track ‘Otherworldly Subversions (Part I: The Crucible)’ is a bewildering mesh of snarling deathly attributes, speedy thrash segments, unkempt, loose black metal nuances and catchy, almost groove-based crossover complexity. Damn, I’d have expected to have heard something of this ilk back on some stuffy 80s demo. Garroted take all that is great from numerous styles and put it all in a blender for all to hear; chugging riffs make way for hasty, spiky strips, and deathlier stuffiness is overlapped by intricate, niftier paths.

Lyrically the band are good too, providing intriguing dark poetry which escapes from the lips of Dan Jacobs with malevolence. But it’s axe-men Ray Brouwer and Jerry Witunsky who own the show here. Their unearthly sound combine dense, filthier licks with more subtle, concise techniques as they slip into the gloom of ‘Pandemonium (Otherworldly Subversions Part II)’ with its trickling bass lines courtesy of KJ Boylan and the militant drum lashes of Steve S. Peyton.

Live, this must be some show because this combo really has mastered the art of constructing tight, unpredictable rhythms as spiralling drum solos tumble between that trembling bass, leading the way for the riffs to permeate the foul, cold air as Jacobs barks those musty orders.

Shortest track ‘Crimson Thirst’ comes hammering out of the blocks like a rabid colony of bats. This hyper death-thrash lesson is executed in barbaric and abrasive fashion; intricately woven pathways of natty riffs worm their way like parasites into the flesh before a wild lead burrows deeper into the mesh of bass and drum. It’s quizzical without being confusing.

The eight minute ‘Into The Shivering Forest’ brings the EP to a close with another conniving and scheming outburst of styles. The initial blitz is a seemingly entangled flurry of scathing guitars and grey, ashen, clawing drums as another wiry solo comes to the fore behind Dan Jacobs’ burps. It’s aggressive, arrogant, yet youthful, with Garroted being about as cult and 80s as it gets without once seeming to openly refer to that era. Their unruly brand of changeable death-thrash summed up in the lyrics “As for what was next, I could not tell”, because one feels that an album brim with such seemingly erratic brilliance would surely be too much to bear.

Of Damnation And Abyssal Terrors is simply one of the best and most elusive products I’ve heard for a long time, and as the bass trickles like cool water over a shard of glassy variable guitar I brace myself for another listen.

Neil Arnold

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