Filthy Music Review - 'Dawn of Chaos: The Need to Feed'

Dawn of Chaos - The Need to Feed (2015)

UKEM Records

Review by Trevor Proctor

Formed in 2000, UK underground death metal group Dawn of Chaos soon established a reputation as a tight and brutal unit, both on stage and also for their studio releases. They released two EPs in 2000, Shotgun Surgery and Twelve Gauge Lobotomy, with no further output until 2006 when they brought us their “Dead Shall Walk the Earth” demo. Many people view the band as a separate entity from its origins to that from 2006 onwards due to significant line-up changes. 

An interesting fact about the band is Tomas Lindberg performed Blinded by Fear on stage with them in their home town when Dawn of Chaos supported The Great Deceiver, albeit with their pre-2006 line-up. Their next release came in March 2009; a split release entitled “Northern Discomfort” which they shared with another English group called Neuroma, a release that further increased their reputation. A live album and another demo followed during 2010 and in 2012 Dawn of Chaos recorded their debut full length with Greg Chandler at Priory Studios. Shortly after the album was finished the band unfortunately split up, leaving the recording in limbo with no official release, despite the promo cd being sent to a number of labels. Many of those who heard the album felt the band had made massive strides in terms of song writing with The Need to Feed being hailed as the strongest music of their career.

Fast forward three years to 2015 and the album is now due to get an official release via UK Extreme Metal Records (UKEM). Label owner/manager and avid supporter of the underground, Chris Newby has been quoted as saying “Having received the promo CD back in 2012 I was so impressed with the improvements the band had made. I was sure this recording would have got them the label deal they truly deserved…sadly not. So, three years down the line, I found the promo CD in amongst some old CDs and decided UKEM Records should really put the album out, it seemed such a shame to have such an impressive recording stuck on a master cd doing nothing…” 

So, thanks to Chris, The Need to Feed will be released on digital and cd formats on the 1^st of August – seen as a special “thank you” to those who supported the band for so many years as well as a befitting testimony to the legacy of one of the UK’s hardest working bands from yesteryear.

Dawn of Chaos’ music is a fairly straight forward style of death metal, with heavy doses of brutality and gore thrown into the mix for good measure, the band cites the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation and Decapitated as sources of influence, influence you can hear seeping through into their own music. 

Lyrical themes centre on gore and cannibalism with titles such as “Butchered” and “Blind, Torture, Kill” succinctly illustrating this and The Need to Feed features nine tracks, each around the four minute mark, with each serving its purpose as being a short, sharp, shock of brutal death metal. Whilst it may be soaked in blood, gore and guts the albums production is quite sharp which lends itself well to the audibility of the plentiful guitar riffs and solos with the pace being orchestrated by precise drumming and bass. The vocals are a fairly typical guttural growl and whilst the music may be crushingly brutal it still features a high level of musicianship – it’s highly riff-driven but is also punctuated by some excellent solos.

Granted, this album is not going to set the world alight in terms of originality for either its musical content or song titles but it doesn’t need to as the music speaks for itself – it’s a serious good slab of devastatingly heavy death metal that pulls no punches. Thirty seven minutes of gore drenched death fly past in a blaze of blasts and riffs – if you’re a fan of brutal death metal with riffs galore this album most definitely ticks your box. 

The good news for Dawn of Chaos and UKEM is pre-orders for the CD are flying, with Dawn…posting on Facebook on 25.07 that over half of the stock has already been sold via pre-orders. Don’t hang about and get over to the UKEM web store to order yours.

Brutally good.

7.5/10

Tracklist:

1 - Blind Torture Kill

2 - The Thrall Engine

3 - Force Fed Embryonic Slurry

4 - Engineering Atrocities

5 - Muffocated

6 - Abominatrix

7 - An Austrian Nursery Crime

8 - Butchered

9 - The Need to Feed

The Need to Feed is released on August 1st, 2015, and can be ordered directly from UKEM Records.