Sunday 31 July 2011

A Wanted Awakening - Rebirth



A Wanted Awakening are a melodic death metal band from Lowell, Massachusetts (USA). The guys formed in 2002 in Florida, under the name Atlas Dying. After line up changes and moves across the US, they changed their name to A Wanted Awakening.

A Wanted Awakening are Rick Hardy on vocals, John Tree on guitar/vocals, Derek St. Martin on guitar, Jason York on bass/vocals and Evan Carney on Drums.

The bands EP - Rebirth was released back in April of this year. It contains five tracks of modern, but progressive death metal. Flameborn is the EP's first track. The songs off-kilter riffs and good range of vocals, including the clean singing, show the bands varied influences and shows off their musicianship really well. The twin guitar harmonies and guitar solo adds more too their sound, and unlike most other modern "deathcore" bands, they don't overfill it with breakdowns. Misanthrope begins with a Middle Eastern intro, before launching into high-pitched growls. The singing again doing a good job of balancing out the bands brutality. The adept rhythm section helps to underpin the rest of the band and the almost Hispanic instrumental passage mid-way through the song again highlights their skillful musicianship. The Massacre to come is a more straightforward death metal song, The deeper growls juxtaposing the higher pitched screams. It also good to see that where they employ cleanly vocals, they are not overused and don't come across as cheesy. Fourth track, Spiders, includes highlights the bands ability to change the pace of their music with ease and the epic metal riffs make the song more of an uplifting experience, which is not something you often hear about death metal. Final track, The Persues Veil, starts off with the rhythm section going at breakneck speed. The band unleashes an epic final guitar solo on the listener, and even drops in a jazzy instrumental passage midway through the track.

Overall , Rebirth is well produced and each instrument is allowed to breath in the mix. It shows the bands musicianship and influences off well. The songs are not overly long and that's good, because they don't lose the listener like some bands do. Considering there are so many bands peddling US death metal and metalcore influences at the minute, it can be tough to stumble across a band which sounds genuinely exciting, but with A Wanted Awakening, you need not search any longer, because these guys have a bright future ahead of them!

The guys have streamed the Rebirth EP on their Bandcamp page. I've attached it here for you to listen to.

Also, make sure you check out A Wanted Awakening's Facebook page at - http://www.facebook.com/awantedawakening for news and tour dates. You can also checkout their merch at http://awantedawakening.bigcartel.com.

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