I reviewed “My Empire”, the stunning debut album by German death metallers Deserted Fear for another (lesser) website back in 2012. It was a killer debut made by some seriously talented lads. ‘Kingdom Of Worms’, their second (anyone using the word “sophomore” is a pretentious prick) album “Kingdom Of Worms” in 2014 was equally impressive and showed a natural progression and maturity to the song-writing. So I’m chuffed to get hold of “Dead Shores Rising” and so I should be as it’s bloody brilliant.
Deserted Fear is one of the classiest new(ish) death metal bands around. No bullshit slammy bollocks. No “oooh look at me” indulgent technicality. These boys are old school brutal with subtle groove elements and a skip-load of catchy, memorable riffs. This of course translates to decent songs and this album is without doubt their most accomplished & enjoyable work to date marking a natural evolution of the band’s sound with a noticeable improvement to the already solid song writing and slightly more emphasis on melody than their previous albums.
Having toured with bands such as Morbid Angel & Morgoth, set up their own studio, signed to Century Media it’s been a busy couple of years for Deserted Fear who have once again roped in Dan Swanö to mix and master this record making the boys sound crisper & tighter than ever.
Opening up with a stirring, grandiose symphonic intro which could have played over the end credits of ‘Gladiator’ we’re off into track one – “The Fall Of Leaden Skies” with Simon Mengs’ laser guided drum attack & aggressively melodic twin guitar lead courtesy of Manuel Glatter & Fabian Hildebrandt before a chunky main riff gets your head banging and your head won’t stop banging until the final track “The Path Of Sorrow” (which features Tomas from At The Gates on vocals).
Every track here is a belter and there’s zero filler. From the full on At The Gates esque…. ‘Open The Gates’ (makes sense) to the more accessible sounding ‘Face Your Destiny’ which the band has filmed a cool video for which you can see below
As I said earlier, everything I loved about their previous record ‘Kingdom Of Worms’ has been sharpened & polished and ‘Dead Shores Rising’ is a superior weapon of death metal destruction in every way. Hopefully this album will bring the band some much deserved attention and some decent tour & festival slots in 2017.
Buy Buy Buy or you’ll be missing out here. If this isn’t in my top ten albums of 2017 then you can sit on my face and call me Bernard!
(9/10Mark Eve)
Leave a Reply