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GUILLOTINE A.D.
Born To Fall

M-Theory Audio (2022)
Rating: 7/10

In 2021 this Athens, Georgia-based death metal act decided to add the A.D. onto their name, a wise moved considering the generic nature of the moniker.

Born To Fall is the second full-length from this trio, and comes five years after the Guillotine debut. Admittedly, this sort of rather cold, clinical death metal hasn’t always appealed to me, reminding in a sense of the myriad of bands one would find leering out of the pages of extreme metal magazines such as Terrorizer.

Musically, these guys do deliver the goods if you like quite melodic yet heavy extreme metal with vocals that express a black / death tone. The title track is a prime example of the band and how it’s progressed. It’s not crushingly heavy, but the chugs are potent enough and the band certainly benefits from those slower, churning passages that engage well with the hard percussive rants of Evan Posey.

The effective chugging is what this album is built upon, as evident from the start on ‘Vultures Of Paradise’ which hints at a doomy flavour with those pallid melodies. The track is extremely catchy throughout its route, meandering with melancholy.

The same rumbles are apparent with ‘Exile’, which then speeds up to form an almost black metal tirade. Again, the vocals of bassist Adam Miller range from a guttural bellow to a more scratchy expression.

The doomy aesthetics certainly make this opus more interesting, and ‘Hammer’ has a truly cavernous echo to it with those despicable traits and cold, grating tones in the axe work. The track also has a more steady, old school flow to its structure.

Elsewhere, ‘Spiritual Insect’ features more nifty axework and stark melody as the band slip into an almost Darkthrone-style of gloomy black / death. I also like how this track unravels with its steady flurries of ice. Meanwhile, ‘I Want To Believe’ rumbles with intent as Guillotine A.D. plies its trade by consistent, plodding death metal without ever gathering any real pace, but it does work.

As someone who isn’t a big fan of death metal that’s quite clean and cutting, this album really does grow on me after repeated listens, but again it’s due to those melancholic trudges. Although not brimming with thrills, Born To Fall is a consistent opus that is both versatile yet heavy, and I can’t really say any more than that.

Neil Arnold

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