Review: As You Drown- Rat King (2011)

Band: As You Drown

Release: Rat King

Genre: Deathcore/Death Metal

Label: Metal Blade Records

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/asyoudrown

Tracklist:

1. Conqueror

2. Slaves To The Kingdom Of Fear

3. You Should Be Paranoid

4. Rabid Wolves In Sheep's Clothing

5. Your Loyal Betrayer

6. The Coming

7. The Nothing

8. Bleeding Structure

9. Cleansing Hands

Review: 5.3/10

Meat and potatoes deathcore is what As You Drown’s latest album Rat King can be best described as. Although they use more death metal elements than most –core bands, they still have breakdowns as a base. Does that make this a bad album? Yes.

Each song is hard to really tell apart and that’s the main fail point. It’s laden with tons of breakdowns, but they sound like they should be used as shorter bridges instead of an entire song. Hardly any deviation is noted in the first song “Conqueror.” This is a song by a band that would make a great filler for any given tour. Even the vocals aren’t anything you haven’t heard already. Just basic deep growls that sound like they were gurgled from the stomach.

“Slaves To The Kingdom Of Fear” is the previous song all over again, but a little faster. The vocals just sound like mud against the instruments, barely having any sort of unique tone or feel at all. Also it really feels like he’s holding back from really belting out some brutal line’s but, alas, he just sounds like a better version of Pathology’s vocalist.

The vocals get even more painful to listen to on “You Should Be Paranoid.” There is no telling what he is saying, but it’s in a tone that is like rubbing a cheese grater against my eardrums. The music really isn’t all that great either. It just sounds like a bunch of thrown together riffs and blast beats that don’t have much relation to each other.

Ditch the current vocalist and get a new guy. Even if they still stay as a basic deathcore band musically, at least they would have a lot more attention than they do now.