January 18, 2013 • Season of Mist
It's surely no surprise that I love Rotten Sound, them embodying just about everything I enjoy about modern grindcore, but after giving their recent EP Species at War a hard listen I remembered why their last album Cursed didn't stick with me: I think they've been losing their touch.
While I've found Rotten Sound to always have a great aesthetic, recently they've spent some time cleaning up the production and those buzzsaw guitars are sadly a bit duller than usual. It sounds a bit more mechanical than before, with fast but very precise riffing and blasts. Intense, and groovy sometimes, but that human element isn't quite all there. Songwriting-wise, the band has become a bit predictable over time; while they were innovative and fresh ten years ago, they haven't changed much—they haven't gotten worse, either, but there isn't a whole lot on Species at War that will stand out.
It's not a bad release, but it's definitely one that doesn't really need to exist. Rotten Sound needs to step up their game if they want to compete with the more interesting, more personal, more exciting bands out there.
Apologies for the recent lack of posting consistency; there are various reasons it happened that I won't go into. However I have gotten back into the swing of things and have the rest of the month's reviews already scheduled out, so it shouldn't happen again (for a long while, at least).
No comments:
Post a Comment