Vulsellum - Face EP

Well, well, well... Sir Kieran McNairn, the fantastic drummer of this up and coming death metal band was kind enough to send me a cd, and i must admit, i liked the fasion in which it was sent. For a free cd you get a cellophane wrapped jewel case with a small information leaflet. No booklet, but for a free cd what can you expect ?
Second of all, Rick... Drop the shades, they are completley naff. To go with your leather jacket, you need a good pair of 80's red neck aviators keeen! No more nineties eastern european tv sets!

Right my media player is on shuffle when i placed the cd in the drive so it played track 2 first, entitled "face". I've liked this song for a while now and i must admit, it does not dissapoint. i love the way it comes in with full-on blast beats. It honestly makes me want to do forward rolls and cartwheels. I quite like the guitar sounds on this cd, they are not really my style, but not far off actually. Very old skool.

So.. i skip back to track one ... "carcass of the dove".

note - although metal is my roots, ive been heavily into the clubnight scene with techno/ electro/ DnB and other than that ive only really been listening to the likes of the postal service and hondo maclean (semi-metal i spose) ... so i feel kind of under quialified right now to be writing this but ill try.

Anyway... back to COTD, after the sluggish doom/ sludge intro you are treated to a full on savage onslaught of death metal the way death metal was origionally incarnated. Old skool riffage reminiscant to that of titans like decapitated and carcass. Well, thats the way i've envisioned it anyway. one thing im noticing about the songs so far is that the vocals are layered.. the actually style is a bit thin and not really my cup of tea but i think there is definate potential. The basslines seem to be quite cool but dont stand out that much from the music for me.

again with the repeat :S !! this song is track 3 - "sheep in wolves clothing" the one thing that stands out for me is that for a dundee band, the drums are pretty much spot on (within the confines of this style anyway) and although there are a few barley noticable hiccups (all professionally over-written though) they really are my cup of tea. Two sugars please hun.
I wont go into too much detail on each individual track because they all sound similar so i'll just pick on individual instruments.

So Rob, your a metal guitarist eh? i like your style so far, especially on "Face" and "walk away" .. although the intro to the latter sounds a tad sloppy... One thing though... where are the solos ?? On a 5 song speed metal CD i expect at least two face-melters baby !! also, i have noticed a few minor slip ups, or more specifically unprecise picking on fast bits but ill let you off. and ill let you have a cookie. want a cookie ??
ps. carcass of the dove has a few riffs sounding similar to stuff ive written last year. No cookie for you,,.... ok.. mabye half.



Kieran (drums)- 4 out of 5 BOOMS
kate (bass)- 3 out of 5 CLACKS
rob (gee-tar)- 4 out of 5 COOKIES
rick (vox) - 2 out of 5 EUROPEAN TV SETS

best songs = FACE and CARCASS OF THE DOVE

OVERALL SCORE = 3 out of 5, which for a new band from scumdee is quite good i recon.

smiley faces all around ,..... : )

ps. sorry i couldnt be assed with the whole "Brutal soaring fist flying riffs and Down tempo stomp riffs to grind your teeth too" review descriptions. This is because they are complete bollocks and who ever writes them has no soul.

PEACE