If you missed my last review of them, Garden Of Eyes is one of at least four projects that young UK one man metal machine Nattskog is producing. This is his very much old school, doom riddled filthy death metal project with the perfect theme: Bloodborne, the complex and relentlessly hard game (<cough> platinumed it <cough>). I think it’s also fair to say that Nattskog is growing up musically very much in public which is never easy but also for the resilient can also have benefits if you forge links with fellow musicians which he has.
So, this is the third release, another EP/Demo (take your pick) and the first thing to note is from the moment the brief Bloodborne sample finishes, the sound here has really improved. Really. The mix and production (again handled by the man himself) has moved quite a few floors up from flooded dungeon level with a clearer sound to the guitars and bass in particular, thankfully without making it remotely clean. The riffs buzz away nicely and the vocals still retain that malevolent, dark cavernous feel.
‘Altar Of Despair’ itself is ponderous and heavy, a riff like early Celtic Frost dragging the heavy entrails of Autopsy across a dank floor. Time changes, rumbling and battering drum blasts, growling echoing deep vocals. It’s basic, raw, but has that real dark spark of life to it that I love in raw and brutal death metal. If anything ‘Living String’ is slower in feel. The guitar lines teeter on the edge of discordant, the drumming a bare rumble like a machine tunnelling. Lead breaks veer into old Tom Warrior territory, cutting through the miasma like sudden claws slashing for you. Yeah, pretty cool. Finally ‘Crown of Illusions’ is slightly more chaotic when the lead break ruptures the riff and the drums kind of follow it through before collapsing back into the crawling riff.
So… It’s very much to my taste – bleak, dark, downtuned and ponderous. It carves a desolate atmosphere, a chthonic world where the forgotten and misshapen crawl. The riffs are memorable too, nicely shaken up by the time changes, and the guitar breaks for me suit it well – maybe that’s my old Celtic Frost fan head speaking there. And as noted this is a far better production; a better sound overall without losing the muck that this band needs. There’s progression too in the songwriting for me; a better focus, tighter riffs. Sometimes I wonder if the drumming needs a little work here and there when it’s not blasting, a little more imagination in the fills maybe just to bring some sharpness but, hey, this is all good and the best yet from Garden Of Eyes.
Early Celtic Frost and Autopsy slathered with doom, primitive and raw but just like the forgotten gods in Bloodborne you can feel the brain squirming away in this, pushing to get the sound in the right direction, and it is. Not for everyone, and still developing, but if you like your death metal as noted above, cross the veil and see what awaits. I really like the way this is all going.
If you’re lucky there may even be the odd tape still floating around…
(7.5/10 Gizmo)
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