{"id":104823,"date":"2025-04-11T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T23:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104823"},"modified":"2025-05-01T10:55:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T09:55:00","slug":"ep-review-rattlesnakes-deeper-shades-of-torment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/ep-review-rattlesnakes-deeper-shades-of-torment\/","title":{"rendered":"RATTLESNAKES – Deeper Shades Of Torment EP (2025) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

RATTLESNAKES
Deeper Shades Of Torment EP<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSelf-released (2025)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I never saw this coming, but now it\u2019s landed I\u2019m blown away. Deeper Shades Of Torment<\/em> is the debut EP from Nottingham, England-based metallers Rattlesnakes. Let me introduce you to this remarkable bunch: on powerhouse vocals we have Rowena Neale, and then there\u2019s axe killers Jacob Shingler and Josh Brown, bassist Elliot Dryden and drummer Nathan Gratton.<\/p>\n

Now, I hear a lot of good stuff and there\u2019s been some excellent female-fronted metal released so far this year, the best being from New York City\u2019s Tower (Let There Be Dark<\/em><\/a>). There\u2019s been some good UK metal too, such as Armstrong Gun (The Fearsome Age<\/em><\/a>), but now there\u2019s Rattlesnakes.<\/p>\n

When I first saw the band name and cover I thought this might be some kind of generic sleaze metal, but wow, this is a blitzkrieg on the senses, a full on heavy metal assault led by the incredible vocals of Rowena who deserves to be filling arenas with her voice. Sure, Rattlesnakes are a bunch of upstarts, they\u2019ve got the denim jackets with the patches, the tight jeans, the pristine hi-top trainers, but beyond the bravado this is a band with the sound. A lot of praise was aimed towards British metal band Tailgunner a year or so ago, and I just felt that they lacked conviction with their formulaic Iron Maiden-esque metal, but Rattlesnakes are the real deal and it\u2019s not often I say that.<\/p>\n

The EP features five songs and there\u2019s not a rotten egg to be found. Instead, you get rocked hard from the off as \u2018Love Me Harder\u2019 strikes with the sort of heavy groove that wouldn\u2019t seem out of place on M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce<\/a>\u2019s 1994 self-titled<\/a> juggernaut. Rowena has that John Corabi grit, bringing that smooth n\u2019 soulful nature.<\/p>\n

Rather than being a throwback to the 80s, Rattlesnakes fit nicely into a late 90s or early 2000s vibe coasting like Beautiful Creatures by integrating a burly sleaze into a framework of no nonsense metal, epitomised by the cool \u2018Selfish Soul\u2019 and hard riffage of \u2018Burn For You\u2019.<\/p>\n

Considering the amount of dull sound-alike bands on the scene, Rattlesnakes are a breath of fresh air. I sincerely hope that they get the attention and success they deserve otherwise Rowena\u2019s talents will be wasted.<\/p>\n

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

RATTLESNAKESDeeper Shades Of Torment EP Self-released (2025)Rating: 8\/10 I never saw this coming, but now it\u2019s landed I\u2019m blown away. Deeper Shades Of Torment is the debut EP from Nottingham, England-based metallers Rattlesnakes. Let me introduce you to this remarkable bunch: on powerhouse vocals we have Rowena Neale, and then there\u2019s axe killers Jacob Shingler […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5905],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-rattlesnakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104823","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=104823"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104825,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104823\/revisions\/104825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}