Garoted was a completely unknown band to me prior to listening to their newest album, and I’m glad I picked this up. Featured prominently on the always reliable Lavadome Productions, this band delivers death metal with a ferocity that is rarely seen nowadays, with many death metal acts opting to go in different, usually cavernous, directions. If you like your flavor of death metal wild and unpredictable, stick around as this band will divebomb their way into your ears and stay there.
While it may be easy to dismiss this band as early Morbid Angel or Deicide worship, Garoted are more akin to modern contemporaries Cambion with their extremely fast, wild style of playing. Like a bull in a china shop, the opener “Infernal Death’s Majesty” immediately sets the tone for the rest of the album. It crushes you into dust with spastic leads and pounding drums that make it impossible to not bang your head to. The rest of the album continues in this fashion and never lets up. Early highlight “Black Canticle of Horror” boasts the most technically impressive fretwork on the album, and it’s a song that will stick with me for quite a while. What really impresses me is the drum production on this album, which makes me think of Dechristianize era Vital Remains, albeit condensed into a neat 35 minute package. That being said, the main problem I have with this album is the fact that the songs, while technically impressive, are quite similar sounding at points. The band attempts to break up the seething madness contained with sample usage “Arcane Shadow Idolatry” and ritualistic drumming “Harkening to the Age of Blood & Plague”, but ultimately these efforts are somewhat in vain as the album remains one note in its carnage. I was suitably impressed though, as this album is still in my current rotation and more than likely won’t find itself kicked out for a while. I think Garoted have a ways to go before they create their magnum opus, but my eyes will be on them throughout that journey.
