Bay Area death metal fanatics, Rude, conjure up yet another colossal and malicious sounding release with their sophomore full-length album, Remnants… . For all those fans who were possessed by the unforgiving old school sound off of Rude's debut album, Soul Recall, those fans will rejoice as the band delivers more crushing tunes of unspeakable destruction.
These guys have really raised the bar with Remnants… and have also reassured people that the old school style of death metal is alive and kicking. Although there are numerous bands who play a similar style of death metal, I have always felt that Rude’s sound and presentation of the music separates them from the other old school death metal worship acts.
Rude really put some thought into the new songs and one can hear where the band improves in certain areas. The recording quality for the new album is probably where I think the band excelled the most. I thought the drum sound of the first album was solid, however, the new album has a more bombastic and bold drum sound. Also, I think the riffs were recorded extremely well on Remnants…,which is saying something because I thought Soul Recall had a great guitar sound that captured the band’s vicious old school attitude.
Out of the nine tracks on the album I find choosing a favorite rather difficult, because each one has strong qualities. The overall songwriting is extremely solid, so the album does not have any dual moments. For their opening song, “Torrent to the Past,” the band grabs your attention right away with a bold crushing intro riff that leads into an explosion of old school devastation. The second track, “House of Dust,” creates a very bone chilling atmosphere in the beginning and I liked the song’s dark tone. Rude’s singer/guitarist Yusef Wallace helps strengthen the music’s haunting sound by providing some gruesome old school death metal growls. I think he is definitely one of the best death metal singers around, especially with regards to the more old school style.
Track number three, “Blood Sucker,” is a nasty piece of guitar riff carnage. I like how the bass sounds during the song and the playing by bassist Jason Gluck is very impressive. The following songs, “Interpretations of the Ultimate Finality,” and “Remnants” continue the fiendish sounding musical destruction. Drummer Chad Gailey lays down some crushing drum parts while Yusef and fellow guitarist David Rodriguez crank out plenty of blasphemous sounding riffs. On track number six, “Fracturing the Gates of Truth,” the band composes a dynamic piece of extreme music and cleverly transitions throughout the aggressive sounding musical landscape.
The final three tracks, “Sanctuary,” “Reboot,” and “Children of Atom,” are not too different from the earlier songs with exception to track number eight, “Reboot.” On, “Reboot,” the band creates a very prog like instrumental piece with these mellow yet haunting chord progressions. The last song, “Children of Atom,” would have to be my favorite if I was forced to pick one. I found the song’s science fiction horror theme to be very appealing along with the band’s instrumental compositions. You feel as though time has stopped and you are drifting through an endless vortex into worlds beyond with the music playing in the background.
I think it should be noted that some people have this belief that a band might go into a slump after putting out a solid debut album. Well, I can say that your fears about Rude going into a slump shall be put to rest when you listen to, Remnants… . Rude shows that if you are going to write music in the old school death metal vein, you better not just release boring and simplistic crap. I think the most important aspect to emphasize and the one that will hopefully get more people to check out this album, is that these guys know how to write pure unforgiving old school style death metal music. If you can't write the songs, your music shall not remain…Definitely not the case for Rude.
Rude "House of Dust" :
Rude Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/Rude-391039200987363/
FDA Rekotz Website:
http://www.fda-rekotz.com
Enjoyed reading your review Robby.
ReplyDelete