Gnawed - Pestilence Beholden [Malignant Records - 2016]Since its inception in 2009, Grant Richardson’s Gnawed has propelled itself into the top tier of heavy electronics and death industrial. Pestilence Beholden is Gnawed’s third full length disc. You are dragged down into a dark space, surrounded by layers of foreboding atmospherics and foggy ambience over the 9 tracks. Utilising recordings from industrial warehouses across Minneapolis, scraping metal, doors banging, (the general industrial sounds you’d expect to here) heavy synths and harsh noise. This is an album drenched in reverb with layers of distortion and walls of high pitched noise. It’s ploughing the same furrows as BDN, and TRP but then which artist in the Death Industrial / Dark Ambient genres isn’t.
There is a sinister element to all the tracks, this is better explored on the tracks that don’t use distorted vocals (these just get in the way in my opinion). I think the main problems with this album is the feeling this is tried and tested route to a death industrial album. I am not hearing anything that makes this stand out above the rest, sadly I feel this feel album is quite formulaic.
Don’t get me wrong, this album is good at what it does, it just doesn’t do anything it shouldn’t. And that's what lets it down for me. Where Gnawed does lifts himself above the other artists in the genre is his production quality. This is utterly wonderful to behold. Every detail of the field recordings is perfect and defined.
Given Gnaweds' track record Pestilence Beholden should be an excellent album. However it feels safe, and therefore it’s an ok album.    Adam Skyes
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