“Hell awaits you the same way it greets me.“
Let’s cut right to the chase: abrasive deathcore is the shameless guilty pleasure for many of us. Forget symphonics, cleans, or whatever other aesthetics have found their way into this space by now. Sometimes, a Triple Glock Supreme down the throat is all we want. The revival scene is to be commended for reigniting this partition of deathcore just as much as it’s been celebrated for emphasizing the technical essentials that we all fell in love with in the first place. No one is going to question the prowess of PSYCHO-FRAME, MAULED, Coma Witch, or Federal Death Alliance, but groups like EAT THE GUN exist to obliterate whatever the aforementioned acts left behind. Sonar quality production and erosive instrumentation is their bread and butter, and it demands undivided attention, regardless of whether or not you’d normally listen to this type of deathcore of your own volition. UNTETHERED might be compact, but it only takes a matter of seconds for it to reduce you to a warm pool of biological waste.
Free-for-all tactics aside, there are clear influences nested within UNTETHERED‘s hellish domain. It probably won’t come as a shock, but from a vocal standpoint, EAT THE GUN has clearly been drinking the old school Chelsea Grin juice and chasing it with a shot of Whitechapel. The discrepant variance between lows and highs is right there along with EAT THE GUN‘s keel-hauling blast beats. For all intents and purposes, this is proper bree-bree LimeWire deathcore done correctly, and it bangs.
If you wanted to hear one continuous breakdown, you’ve come to the right place. EAT THE GUN empties the entire magazine with pinch harmonics and bass drops at every turn, and only offers up a chance to get your bearings at the tail end of each track. There are a few instances where the momentum lessens, but never to the point of stopping entirely. This is becoming a lost art, even with some of the revival scene’s newer bands. EAT THE GUN simply has to reload after blowing your brains out all over the pavement before erasing the rest of your torso on the next round, and they do it pretty damn quickly.
There’s no denying UNTETHERED‘s heaviness, but its engineering is what truly makes it a worthwhile listen. Toaster oven mixing is obviously not for everyone, but striking a healthy balance between that and modern production is usually sufficient to keep listeners engaged. EAT THE GUN manages to juggle both sides of the spectrum very well, which also elevates the nostalgia factor of UNTETHERED. Be sure to adjust your at-home equalizer accordingly; otherwise, you might blast a hole through your bedroom floor. By the time the EP’s core tracks are through, EAT THE GUN has established themselves as Myspace pundits.
While fittingly mournful, the footnoting track “EPILOGUE” may end up feeling out of place for some, especially the hardened revival acolytes. On the heels of three certifiable barn burners, it’s an interesting way to close out the EP. Nonetheless, this is very subjective, and most will likely bask in its melancholic tones, assuming, of course, they haven’t been razed to ash by UNTETHERED‘s triple-barreled rocket launcher predecessors.
UNTETHERED aims to dismantle every part of its listeners with no anesthesia and all vinegar, and succeeds masterfully. It may be over a bit quickly, but EAT THE GUN hardly needs any time to display the audible personification of a drive-by shooting. This is the kind of deathcore scene kids would knock each other unconscious to in fifty-cap venues, and we should all be glad it’s returned in full swing. This may be EAT THE GUN‘s first crack at it, but they’re well on their way to setting themselves apart from a lot of other revival acts if they keep this up.
8/10
UNTETHERED has been released as of today, October 20, and is available on all streaming platforms.