Saturday, February 7, 2015

Gast:"S/t"




Here is another nail in the coffin for the death-rock resurgence. This band Tonally they have got some things right in the guitar and bass tone. It opens not unlike something you might hear from any number of the new breed of death-rock bands. Once the vocals come in, it speeds up into a more hardcore punk that spoils the atmosphere created."Gast hangs onto some of the darker chord progression, it's just at the speed they are played they lose considerable effectiveness. So perhaps that's a one time thing, well the shouted punk vocals get worse as they go, until if you try to listen to this album more than once you begin finding yourself starting to block them out. They give more of a Dead Kennedys build up to "Recuerdo", and the vocals don't grate on me here as they did on the previous song , though this trend is short lived as "Dark Days"sets a good tone, but then the vocals come in ruin it. The vocals of Bellicose Minds have a punk shout thing going on , but still retain melody and are memorable. This is not the case here.

"Cradle to the Grave" continues on the more punk road to no where.  Their bassist is good might even be the most  talented member of the band, the guitarists isn't half bad either. The cover of the  Danish punk band from the 80s ADS and it proves to be one of the albums best songs, which is not the best sign for the band if their covers are better than their originals. It means they can't write songs. I am not sure if  that is true as at times it seemed like they had a notion of what they wanted to do with the songs but without the proper vocals to sell those ideas it fell flat more often than not.I'll give this album a 3.5, the vocals pretty much killed it for me . That kind of punk is generally not my thing.

they are Google resistant when it comes to finding them on online so if you feel the need to hear these guys for yourself then here is the link...
 http://stenchofthedeath.blogspot.com/2015/02/gast-self-titled-2014.html

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