BESIEGED - Besieged

BESIEGED
Besieged
Comatose Music - 2004
5/10




A brash onslaught of technical death metal, Besieged offer up eight tracks intended to brutalize the listener with furious blasts and deep, guttural growls. Vocalist Jason French would be a serious challenger in any “How low can you go?” contest and his chaotic guitar leads are viciously intense.

This said, this self titled record severely suffers from poor production at various points throughout the record. You’ll find some heavy guitar tones here, but the manner in which they were mixed is often quite muddy, with the production often sounding more like a pre-production demo as opposed to an actual album.

On an album as bass heavy as this one, further compression would assist in helping the listener through the sludge. Songs such as “Golgotha” and “Age Of Malevolence” would no doubt be of interest to fans of underground death, nonetheless. The thumping violence of “Age Of Malevolence” would no doubt appeal to fans of bands like Suffocation, especially being of note to those who enjoyed that group’s earlier recordings, but again, the production aspects rear their ugly head, with instruments fading in and out for no good reason and the flapping tones of the bass guitar coming into direct conflict with French’s guttural belching.

If you’re the type of fan that can get into sonic brutality no matter how ill- produced, you might find some redeeming qualities here, but most listeners will want to steer clear of this record.


ERIN FOX © 2004 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED