The Rotted are finally back with their new full length Ad Nausea, the follow up to Get Dead Or Die Trying and is their second under the new moniker since Gorerotted became The Rotted. They are bringing another dose of crusty death metal to the masses, but besides the heavy as fuck instrumentation, this release doesn’t seem to go anywhere and most of the album is littered with little to no variation save for a few blackened parts.
The crusty hardcore aspect is present in nearly every song same with the constant tremolo battering. It’s shame almost all of the tracks follow the same banter. Whether your ears are succumbing to the rotten hate that is “Surrounded By Skulls,”“Just Add Nauseam” or the dangerously dirty “Apathy In The UK,” and “Motorbastards” one will have a hard time trying to distinguish the albeit linear song structure.
It isn’t until the last two tracks where variation does occur and even then it’s still not enough to save this boring atrocity. First up is “The Hammer of Witches” and it’s a darkened punk rock song with some primal black metal riffing. Next is album closer “Put Me Out Of Your Misery” and it’s a cold doom ridden onslaught of depressive blackened fury. It’s actually quite boring for a five minute track. These two tracks do however demand a listen because it’s cool to hear The Rotted bringing more creative flourishes to their sound even if the songs aren’t anything special.
Vocals on this effort fit the music well. With an array of throaty punk snarls, caveman barks, and blackened shrieks the vocals compliment the music well. The lyrics are punk anthems about horror shit and anarchy. Again nothing special but they do bring tension and aggression when coupled with the instrumentation.
These guys are definitely big fans of Discharge and other crusty cross overs like Impaled Nazarene. It’s not a great record and to be honest nothing these guys ever did was amazing, even their stint in Gorerotted was lackluster at best. Maybe they have it in them to make a memorable album but with all the drab material these guys put out I’m just going to move on and forget I heard their music.
Clueless review.
on Feb 22nd, 2012 at 08:08why is it clueless? obviously you’re a fan of these guys and Jesse was not. why do you think his review is wrong?
on Feb 22nd, 2012 at 14:28maybe the record didn’t have enough breakdowns.
on Feb 22nd, 2012 at 15:06Get Dead or Die Trying was a felching fantastic album … this one is a bit meh.
on Feb 22nd, 2012 at 17:37I loved the last one but this one was forgettable. Agree with Jesse here
on Feb 23rd, 2012 at 12:21