Decrapted – Bloody Rivers of Death
Release Date: 5th April 2022
Label: Xtreem Music
Bandcamp
Genre: Old School Death Metal
FFO: Cannibal Corpse, Obituary.
Review By: Rick Farley
Born in the spring of 2021, Decrapted is a sideband formed by Vincenta Payá on guitar & bass and Dave Rotten on vocals. Being old friends since 1991 and both having worked on different projects before, the felt the need to work on a proper Death Metal band. There was no intent on reinventing the wheel, but rather offer up Old School Death Metal with intensity, brutality, a dose of melody and some killer grooves.
To be perfectly honest, I am a little torn on Bloody Rivers of Death. When the heavy groove is hitting and Dave’s deep guttural lows are practically conjuring Satan just by themselves, there’s some killer music going on here. Brutal, bulldozer heavy riffs, pounding bass and drums, and bouncy old school intensity. There’s a nice mix of Swedish and American Death Metal influences, a little Entombed mixed with Immolation. Some Obituary and a bit of Dismember. Hell, let’s even swing by England and pick up a smidge of Bolt Thrower as well. When it’s good, it’s really fucking good, but that’s only part of the time. There are a lot of styles going on to make everything interesting enough to keep listening, but it left me feeling overall unsatisfied. With that pedigree of influences, to have it be this flat and lifeless is confusing. Not to mention again the intent was to purposely create some new Old School Death Metal.
One of the problems is the mix of kickass riffs and the generic, recycled ones. One minute it’s a brutal, crushing groove, and then it just goes to a very lacklustre sounding one. It could be meant to sound familiar and old school, but it makes for a disorienting listen. Some of it sounds too plain and overused, becoming a bit of an afterthought. The actual little bits of guitar melody here and there are also a bit off. Some of the melodies and solos are distracting from the actual song and sound like they’re trying to force authenticity just for the sake of it. That’s not to say that the music is all bad because it’s not. The songs themselves are mostly good, but have pieces where things sound out of place and confused. Whether it be the music, the vocals or the performance, it’s a little disjointed.
The other issue is with Dave’s non-low growls. They’re of the vomiting Jon Tardy style delivery. Dave’s version is a little high-pitched and very loud in the mix. It’s very awkward and sounds overly forced. It’s so loud it can come across as somewhat obnoxious. It doesn’t sound natural at all. His lows are incredible and to go to the pukey style so roaringly and contrived, it’s coming off rather disingenuous.
I want to like Bloody Rivers of Death, I really do. I guess the real problem here is the idea that there are so many other bands who are just doing it better or already have done it better. If you’re going to state in your press release that you intend to be old school, then you better bring it. And eight songs at just barely thirty-one minutes of partially kickass music is not going to cut it, at least not for me. Obviously, this style is pretty one note, and I’m sure that there will be a nice little niche of people for Decrapted out there who will probably think it’s pretty good. It does have its place within the metal realm, but it will be lost in the mix of much better releases. In the end it’s average, I wasn’t completely turned off listening to it, but I wasn’t enthralled either. Unfortunately, Decrapted sounds just as it was stated, a sideband.
(3 / 5)
