The Day Of The Beast – Indisputably Carnivorous
Release Date: 18th June 2021
Label: Prosthetic Records
Pre-Order/Pre-Save
Genre: Thrash, Death Metal, Blackened Thrash.
FFO: Goatwhore, The Crown, Warfect, Necromantheon.
Review By: Kenny Newall
Why eat a vegan sausage roll when the person offering it to you has a bellyful of guts you can simply rip out and devour? And this take on culinary delights sums up The Day Of The Beast’s take on music too; go for the guts every time and immerse the listener in the audial equivalent of a zombie breakfast. Which is what we get from Indisputably Carnivorous, the fourth outing for TDOTB and their first for Prosthetic Records, seeing a step up in production, if not necessarily in quality. Though this is definitely more of the same in terms of style and pummelling which should please long time fans. Of which I’m not, it must be owned as this is a new band for me. I have given their back catalogue a once over right enough and I’d have to say Relentless Demonic Intrusion is the best of what I heard, though this release is up there.
Up there with their other releases that is. Alongside the likes of Goatwhore or Witchery, TDOTB don’t quite honey my mustard, but they’re still well worth a listen. Especially on standouts like Disturbing Roars of Twlight (video below), Enter The Witch House and the rather fornicatingly brilliant Judas In Hell Be Proud. Strangely this is the track that’s probably the most generic, but Goatwhore and Witchery may well be the parents as these are damn good genes. The parents that spawned the other bastards that fill out the album, though are not quite of the same pedigree and this is generic in a way Spartans of old would be tempted to leave out for exposure to do it’s worst. Only tempted, however, as the exposure of multiple listenings finds a riff here, a solo there or a vocal pattern, uh, somewhere else that you can heartily grind your carnivorous teeth into.
For the most part it’s the guitars that do it for me on this release, but it’s the vocals that lower the overall effect somewhat. Vocalist, Steve Harris (he must sing bass rather than tenor I groaningly thought, but as expected he goes for growl) has a grate I just can’t get into. Technically it’s there and he double tracks a lot of Death under the Blackened growls, but it just isn’t quite there for me tonally. Which bemuses me somewhat as he’s similar to Carcass’s Jeff Walker, a vocalist who happily gets my tonsils wobbling. Personal taste, a bit like Axl Rose for some when it comes to the clean vocals.
So overall a band I’m glad to become acquainted with, though an album I’ll playlist the standouts and leave the rest for a future that probably won’t come.
Additionals:
Not to be confused with Day Of The Beast, a Black Metal outfit from France. This lot are from Virginia Beach.
The press pack helpfully lets us know the album name is taken from the Graham Masterson novel, The Wells of Hell, and the title track is primarily based on that book. The other tracks have horror themes inspired by the likes of Clive Barker, Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft.
Listening to Indisputably Carnivorous again whilst writing up this review, Harris’s vocals are growing on me.
(3.5 / 5)
