We have one hell of a video for you today, for a vicious song that generates enough voltage to drive massive turbines to the meltdown point. Garoted easily could have made four different playthrough videos for it, each one featuring the eye-popping performance of a different band-member, but instead we get to be even more thoroughly bamboozled by watching as the screen rapidly cuts from one to the next.
The song that’s the subject of the video, “Unfathomable Manifestation“, is off this Kansas-based band’s forthcoming fourth album, Bewitchment of the Dark Ages, which is set for a May 26 release by Lavadome Productions. It ought to leave fans of savage, technically jaw-dropping death metal slobbering, both hungry and head-spun.
It seems unlikely that most visitors here have never previously encountered any of the music Garoted have put out over the last 14 years, but with a six-year lull since their last album, we’re all due for a an explosive reminder. And it’s no exaggeration to say that on this new record (which features new vocalist Devo) they’ve hit a new high point, and it’s a release that should significantly elevate their profile.
Lavadome promises “violent music that is both ferociously instinctive and cerebral” — “controlled aggression engulfed in infernal blasphemy, honed to a razor-sharp edge”. “Unfathomable Manifestation” abundantly demonstrates that those aren’t empty words.
The song moves at eye-popping speed and displays impressive technicality, from the fleet-fingered, fret-leaping guitar- and bass-work work to the high-octane drumming, which manages to be both bludgeoning and bullet-spitting. Just the first 30 turbocharged seconds will kick a listener’s adrenaline into high gear.
That blistering overture sounds maniacal, but it’s executed with precision, as the quick starts and stops make clear. When the vocals arrive, they also sound ferociously unchained, and Devo should be complimented for managing to expel the words fast enough to keep up with the speed demons around him.
Without ever significantly slowing the pace or backing away from their devotion to destructive musical derangement, the band do switch up the riffs and the drum patterns, and continue to segment the spectacle with machine-precise stops and starts, all of which will keep you on the edge of your seats.
Moreover, the song features a wild guest guitar solo by Coop Schuh that rockets the song even further into the red zone of barbaric exhilaration, and follows that with a dose of jackhammering that’s fuel for headbangers — though even there the quivering, dive-bombing squeal of the lead guitar leaves no doubt that we haven’t left the madhouse.
GAROTED is:
Devo – Vocals
Drew Frerking – Guitars
Jonathan Tennant – Bass
Nolan Weber – Drums
Bewitchment of the Dark Ages was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Axel Harvey Productions, and it features cover art by the mighty Misanthropic-Art. Check the locations linked below for more info. And if, by some remote chance, you’re not already eager to be garroted by this album, we’ve also included a stream of the album’s equally dazzling and diabolical first single, “Rites of Sinister Defilement“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://lavadome.bandcamp.com/album/bewitchment-of-the-dark-ages
https://store.lavadome.org/
GAROTED:
https://garoted.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Garoted/