Lay Down Rotten: Gospel Of The Wretched

Having been around for ten years and released 4 previous albums, German death metallers, Lay Down Rotten make their presence more know with their Metal Blade debut with Gospel Of The Wretched.

I’d be lying if I sat here and said that most of death metal doesn’t sound very similar, because it obviously does. We all know that over the years there has become a cookie cutter type sound that most bands follow. That doesn’t necessarily make the music bad, it just makes the bands that define themselves by sounding slightly different than everyone else sound a lot better and on a higher plane.

Lay Down Rotten’s Gospel Of The Wretched is good ole’ death metal to the tune of a European style, but doesn’t seem to break the mold.

What I do really dig about Lay Down Rotten is the fact that they aren’t trying to be too technical, too fast. The riffs flow exceptionally well and you may draw a bit comparison, sound-wise to Amon Amarth at some points.

The duel guitars of vocalist/guitarist Daniel Jakobi and guitarist Nils Förster seta  rhythm in every song that works well and doesn’t feel like an entangled ball of string. The solos aren’t at light-speed and they sound like they have a lot of feeling to them unlike some of the ridiculously nimble fingered solos that plague a lot of technical death metal these days.

Uwe Kilian’s bass playing is mixed in to their sound without is really showcasing him at all, but he’s in there laying it down right alongside the rhythm guitar and keeping the bottom end tight. Timo Claason’s drumming sounds as good as any respectable death metal drummer. Daniel Jacobi’s vocals are a deep, flemmy, throaty growl that certainly goes well with the music.

The stand out track that I really dig on this album are Thy Won’t Be Done. Thy Won’t Be Done has a slower, doom-groove at the beginning that I really dig and then picks up in to a fast, furious rhythm and in turn back to a groove with a killer solo a little more than half way through it.

Other cool tracks are Beyond Damnation, another cool track with groove ridden triplets and a nice bridge to it. When All Becomes Nothing is a pretty sick track as well.

Overall, Lay Down Rotten’s Gospel Of The Wretched is a standard death metal album with a solid, talented line up of good metal musicians. I wouldn’t call Gospel’ anything elite or epic among other death metal or metal releases of 2009 in general, but it’s not bad by any stretch.

Gospel Of The Wretched was recorded at Desert Inn studios in Edingen, Germany. It was mixed and mastered by Swede Dan Swano who is well known in the European death metal scene. LDR have set a date of May 12 for the release of Gospel.

You can pre-listen to 5 of the tracks off of the disc at Metalblade.de.

Image: Metal Blade Records