EP REVIEW: Breath Of The Tomb – Left To Rot
Although the band only formed a couple of years back, LEFT TO ROT are already gathering a significant amount of musical momentum. Their first demo was a little rough around the edges, but showed a lot of promise with some incredibly impactful and aggressive death metal, immediately marking this Texan four-piece out as a band to watch. Just over two years since that demo’s release, the band are back with a new EP Breath Of The Tomb, a record that refines and develops their already weighty sound, resulting in a sharper and leaner take on classic death metal that boasts some exceptionally monolithic and memorable tracks.
After the sombre and atmospheric Intro sets the scene, the record’s first full track Breath Of The Tomb bursts into life with a wall of groove-laden guitars, galloping drums and thick, rumbling bass all creating a fierce and driven sound right out of the gate. The dense gutturals that accompany the music are just as domineering, providing a powerful, booming quality that complements the punchy and punishing tone of the rest of the song and making for an authoritative statement of intent that immediately grabs the listener’s attention.
The Hidden One possesses a lot of the same forceful, rhythmic hooks, but peppers a liberal dose of tight melodic flourishes in amongst this to turn this meaty juggernaut into a tighter and catchier offering than the preceding track. The vocals are far more animated, ranging from ferocious growls through to acerbic snarls, adding a dramatic element to their performance that helps bring the track to life and allows this song to stand out for all the right reasons.
Come To Me utilises a similarly chunky, chugging guitar sound to the first two songs, but strips away a lot of the more intricate touches from the leads as the drums and bass embrace the same sort of steady, measured approach. The reserved style on display means that the vocals are often the focal point around which the music is built, with only a few jarring moments from the guitar shifting the focus away from them, and as a result this proves to be a far more straightforward slab of death metal than the rest of the record.
Already Dead goes in the exact opposite direction, and is all the more impactful for it, with energetic drumming, frenetic guitar work and sludgy bass all crafting a more chaotic and feral sound that even manages to experiment with some cleaner tones. The throaty roar of the vocals equals the rabid bent of the music, and they remain consistent and monolithic in amongst the demented and eclectic elements that are going on around them, bringing this EP to a close on what is easily not only the record’s strongest effort, but also its most imaginative.
Breath Of The Tomb builds upon the many strengths that were present on their demo, and applies a more polished production and tighter musicianship to create a much more powerful and punchy slab of death metal. The four tracks on this EP each possess some impressive ideas, with the title track and Already Dead especially being particularly impressive and catchy tracks that are album worthy additions. Hopefully, LEFT TO ROT will be able to carry the momentum and intensity that is present on this EP forward into creating their first album, because there are touches of brilliance here that, if replicated in a longer form, could establish the band as one of the most promising underground death metal acts in the US.
Rating: 8/10
Breath Of The Tomb is out now via self-release.
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