{"id":104249,"date":"2024-11-22T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104249"},"modified":"2024-11-26T11:33:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T11:33:06","slug":"album-review-gutless-high-impact-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-gutless-high-impact-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"GUTLESS – High Impact Violence (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

GUTLESS
High Impact Violence<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nMe Saco Un Ojo \/ Dark Descent (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Hmmm, I\u2019m not sure what to think of the cartoon gore cover of this debut full-length from Melbourne, Australia-based combo Gutless? It\u2019s certainly less primitive and more goofy than the the band\u2019s 2018 Mass Extinction<\/em> demo. Even so, High Impact Violence<\/em> remains a highly anticipated release that\u2019s the musical equivalent to blunt force trauma, or, as the cover art suggests, a brick to the skull.<\/p>\n

Choppy in its instrumentation and gruff in its equally forceful vocals \u2013 which sound like Deicide\u2019s Glen Benton choking on Bigfoot pubes \u2013 High Impact Violence<\/em> is a lot less sludgy or swampy than a lot of today\u2019s offerings, preferring instead to be relatively prosaic in its direct punishing design. Like tumultuous waters, songs such as \u2018Gore God\u2019 and \u2018Beyond The Catacombs\u2019 are formed as chunky barrages, thickened by the punchy barks that navigate the rough waves as grunted commands.<\/p>\n

To an extent, this album has more in common with the mid-to-late 90s era but less tech savvy, instead focusing on meaty blocks of pummeling that result in bellowing mid-paced expressions. For me, the most intriguing thing about this opus is the lack of progression; the band is done with that and so am I. So many old school sounding bands of today, for example Tomb Mold, have mimicked some of the early 90s acts by branching out their sound into wistful, weird and progressive landscapes, but Gutless have done the reverse, simplifying their sound and relying on a hefty bludgeoning riff count and straight laced butchery.<\/p>\n

The track \u2018Bashed And Hemorrhaging\u2019 is very much a sign of the Gutless times; a rampant yet moshing vandal that terrorizes the eardrums with its barbaric thrashing. There are no gimmicks to behold here. Gutless doesn\u2019t provide overlong or self-indulgent plateaus, just no nonsense deliveries which never overstay their welcome, like the gargantuan \u2018Carved Into Existence\u2019, the churning \u2018Avalanche Of Viscera\u2019 and brain-munching closer \u2018Viral Infection\u2019.<\/p>\n

High Impact Violence<\/em> is very much a smash n\u2019 grab effort. At a duration of just over 26 minutes, Gutless leaves us thirsty for more but also a touch disappointed that such an eagerly awaited gory mashing is so brief in spite of its flurry of jabs and heavyweight right hooks. Impactful, yes. Violent, yes. Permanent damage, no.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GUTLESSHigh Impact Violence Me Saco Un Ojo \/ Dark Descent (2024)Rating: 7.5\/10 Hmmm, I\u2019m not sure what to think of the cartoon gore cover of this debut full-length from Melbourne, Australia-based combo Gutless? It\u2019s certainly less primitive and more goofy than the the band\u2019s 2018 Mass Extinction demo. Even so, High Impact Violence remains a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5830],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-gutless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104250,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104249\/revisions\/104250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}