“Do my part until I’m gone.“
Entering on the scene of heavy hardcore with a blend of rap come Danish unit DETHRXNER, following on from their debut record OVERTHRXWN comes follow up EP, TAUNT. Looking to further establish their sound and gather a foothold, with their debut seeing a successful launch that has landed them upon many festival line-ups. Although with much of the EP now released singles, there only remains track “REAL ONES” left to be reveiled on the full release of TAUNT.
Opening TAUNT comes “Get Good” with sees the feature of Dutch group, Cabal, who dropped one of the finest deathcore records of 2022. After a fairly inoffensive intro of pounding drums and dominating vocals comes a fairly lazy chorus which sits on the crux of “Get good or go home”, which is the first of many Twitch chat-esque lines that plague TAUNT. Leading into the CABAL feature comes “Life’s a game, so throw the dice“, and it’s lines such as these that sticks in the mind on reflection, for better or for worse.
The beatdown style continues and is pieced together in a pretty decent fashion on “ALPHA JUSTICE” and “REAL ONES“, so far as that ignoring the lyrics and track names would surely make for a pretty good experience in a live setting. “Putting you to the test with the alpha justice”, alongside the further shouting of the track’s title just continue to come across as obtuse, even if it does provide a beat that you could happily two-step to. “REAL ONES” continues a similar instrumental theme and even drops lines about “the hustle“, which is one the most grim-laden terms in recent memory.
A vocal feature from Aaron Matts, of ten56. and former Betraying The Martyrs fame, fails to pick things up. Despite the vocal prowess of Matts, the feature feels washed in amongst the many seen across this record, and the two vocalists sit within such a similar range and style that it doesn’t lend a sense that it adds anything to the track. Closing out comes “POWER“, which adds yet another feature to the rest. This time featuring of Shaolin G of UnityTX, it proves to be the most well-utilized one across the entirety of TAUNT, and would surely see a crowd moving and throwing hands.
It’s difficult not to come out of TAUNT feeling somewhat muddled, with the questionable lyricism and themes being generally being unpalatable. While a handful of solid features do give the record some prowess, it eventually feels like a crutch. With some decent instrumentals present that many would enjoy, DETHRXNER unfortunately need to work on their lyricism and themes to fully step up a level.
4.5/10
TAUNT is out this June 2nd via Prime Collective.