Gates of Punishment

Rose Funeral is one of those bands who, if you took a brief listen through their previous works, you may have given up on hearing anything worthwhile from them other than generic White Silence and Suicide Chapel worship. Gates of Punishment, however, is a breakthrough from their previous disappointments and proves to be just as the album title says, Punishing, from start to finish.

The album opens up with Legions of Ruination, a less than 3 minute song that's an excellent taste of what's to come. After about a minute of church bells and other standard intro track sounds, it breaks out into some of those punishing, blasting riffs that make this one of the best deathcore albums I've ever heard, immediately following into a well-placed mini solo and then a mid-paced breakdown which carries the song into Grotesque Mutilation. Lyrical content seems to revolve around rape, violence, and demonic possession, nothing groundbreaking or worthy of hunting down on Darklyrics.com, but overall some of the better vocals I've heard on a deathcore album. Gates of Punishment also proves to be damn catchy, especially in tracks like Entercism, which has a bit of a Black Dahlia Murder feel to it and a pretty well done chorus verse after it crawls out of a sub-par breakdown intro.

The term "deathcore" can be used very loosely to define this album, as it really does seem to be deathcore that caters to fans of a more straightforward death metal approach. The breakdowns that do show up (granted, in every song more or less) are tastefully done and placed strategically in between those chugging, blasting, and punishing riffs and the occasional over-the-top melodic solos (see Arise Infernal Existence or the Desolate Form). I hate to praise breakdowns of any band as the vast majority of them I could do without, but occasionally they do their job quite well in a song, or maybe I've just listened to this album a few too many times, but there's a couple ones in Malignant Amour and Beyond the Entombed that are beyond what most bands do with a breakdown. They're rhythmic, fast-paced, and fucking savage. With that being said, there are a few that I've ended up skipping over because they're pretty bland and unappealing, False Divine being chiefly among them which starts off fairly promising and just stops about a minute in and takes a turn towards Shitsville before slowly crawling back out again into a redeeming chanted chorus.

In summary, Gates of Punishment is definitely worth a listen to for death metal fans that can tolerate tastefully done breakdowns in between the blasting savagery that permeates throughout this album. Recommended tracks include all of them except for False Diving.

I have no idea what is up with deathcore lately, but it seems that all they want to do is re-hash everything over and over again. One of two cases in point is the new Rose Funeral (other case in point will be Suffokate). I will give them the fact that they incorporate a lot of death metal into their songs and actually have some form of progression. Whatever bug that Morbid Angel has that resulted in their latest release becoming an abomination to metal and their fans. Even Hitler had to rise up and make a Youtube video of it. Deviating from my Morbid Angel rant, the sad thing is that Chris Tucker’s guest vocals on this album is the best part about that entire thing, which should give you enough insight on what to expect.

Honestly, I did not like Rose Funeral before reviewing this, but I thought maybe they have changed just a bit.

Wrong! Chuck Testa!

With a boring opener, the second song “Grotesque Mutilation” is exactly what you would expect from a band that would go to a random shocking song title generator online to sound like. If Schnitzel from the TV show Chowder was to start growling, this is as close as what he would sound like. The guitar “solo” (though I would hardly call it that) is weak. The guitarist just stepped on a pedal to change the sound, but failed to sound any different from the rhythm guitar. And the little rapping section in the beginning said “lets get on Whitechapel’s chode and do what dey do so dat we can beecom famus!!”

I don’t mean to slam them too much, it’s just that there is nothing new, and they don’t venture out too much with the rehashing job they did here. Every genre on this earth is chock full of artists and bands that bring nothing new to the genre and cater to younger fans so that they can get recognition for what other bands have already done before them. The high pitched vocals are raspy and have no thrills, while the growls are somewhat decent but don’t really have too much to offer to the table.

Another band’s thunder they ride is on the song “Malignant Amour.” They resemble Carnifex so much that I can’t ever take Rose Funeral seriously ever again. And what in Satan’s name is that awful opera section that just comes out of nowhere? If you’ve ever seen the movie Thumbtanic and heard the horrible parody they did of the opera singer, then you are more educated without having to subject yourself to this. It’s ok, you can thank me later by buying me a beer.

I would rather look at and critique 500 awkward family pictures than review something like this again. Unfortunately, I still have to review the new Suffokate, which is an even bigger deathcore septic tank than this. Be on the lookout for that steamer that would make your dad who takes pictures of his poop proud.

So... it looks like Rose Funeral has come a long way from their debut album Crucify.Kill.Rot. and their second album The Resting Sonata. This album is actually brutal, melodic, technical and has more death metal influences than core influenced, breakdown ridden songs (not that there is a problem with that). Compared to their first record, a new listener might not be able to tell that this is the same band, holy shit... While Rose Funeral is still a deathcore band, there are going to be breakdowns in the songs, but they aren't after every couple riffs, there's maybe one per song, and they aren't very long. It was like Carnifex's Hell Chose Me album. It also reminded me of The Black Dahlia Murder at times.

In terms of technicality, they have improved ten fold. Everything about this band I liked before Gates of Punishment was liked even more when it came out. It took me a couple listens to get into it, and now I'm done listening to it, so I thought I'd review it since there isn't a review for such a great release by this band. You've still got the melodic riffs, the breakdowns, and the brutality, but it's all just so much better. There is even an added level of progression in terms of there being little piano pieces included at the ends of songs or in the middle of them, not just being filler tracks like in CKR. It seems they really like what they did in there second album with the song "Dawning the Resurrection: Verse II" and added to it... minus the long ass breakdown. I believe they got a new vocalist for this record, and god damn, he is great at what he is doing. Good beefy lows, and good mid range and highs all around, with good duel tracked vocals to add a level of evilness. Lyrical wise is more anti-christian themed stuff, but it's a lot more mature and smart for lack of a better word. The drumming is also a lot bigger and interesting, too bad he quit right after the album was recorded. The only thing that is bad about this record is that the bass isn't audible, but it's understandable within the walls of deathcore. Also, the production is crisp, clean and somehow really evil sounding.

If you are a deathcore fan, you have to pick this up, and if you are a Rose Funeral fan, you NEED to pick this up. I'll give it a 9/10 just because I can't hear the bass.