Deathrite - Flames Licking Fever

Angry Metal Guy 30

Sometimes it’s not about the brutality or the speed, it’s about the pizzazz. German band Deathrite began life as OSDM worship in 2010, before attempting to make their own mark by incorporating more punk riff simplicity and black metal atmospheres into one vile brew. Now, they stand poised to deliver their fifth outing, the oddly titled Flames Licking Fever, and the idea of such a trifecta of sounds certainly tickles the earballs. Do the ingredients come together in a potable stew, or should these flavors remain separated from each other for good?

Flames Licking Fever is drowning in atmosphere which lends it a clear auditory identity, and any one song, chosen at random, would convince you that you’d stumbled on something special. The slightly reverbed vocals and spaced instruments give it a flavor adjacent to the Icelandic black metal scene, particularly Svartidauði. This gives the more punk-flavored riffs an engaging auditory palate, particularly in the stuttering echoes and classic rock-tinged twang of “Gallows Trail.” Solos, when present, are engaging and enjoyably shreddy and vocalist Tony Heinrich howls with a more clean, thrash-oriented tone, which is well-suited to the echoing nature of the production. The whole package makes for excellent background music while cleaning or spending time with friends with its accessible tones, mid-paced chugs and gentle echoes, and if that sounds like a good time for you, this might be up your alley.

Flames Licking Fever by Deathrite

If you, however, think “excellent background music” is damning with faint praise, you are right on the money, as Flames Licking Fever is catastrophically boring. The entire compositional backbone of Deathrite consists of taking the more mid-paced heft of Mammoth Grinder or Genocide Pact and riding simplistic grooves well past their expiration point. Every song here except “Misanthropic Rush” is played at the same “brisk walk with a loved one” tempo, with minimal variations of bpm or rhythmic progression to keep things interesting. Opener “Crippled Ego” briefly deceives with its almost industrial-like intro of blast beats and cold, computer-like guitar tones, but this, alas, turns out to be one of the very few moments of energy in an otherwise morose presentation. From time to time a tired, trem-lead rears its head, but is invariably swallowed up in the atmosphere of the album due to its exhausted-sounding, bleary pace.

It doesn’t help that compositionally, Flames Licking Fever has precisely two tricks to keep the listener engaged: the occasional time signature shift, and an almost Beethoven-esque affection for trills. Making the strange track sequencing/compositional choice to end a song with a slow, boring chug or riff, only to open the very next song with an equally boring chug or riff, Deathrite compensate by attempting to trick the listener into thinking something interesting is about to happen by deftly switching from a 2/4 to a 3/4 time (“Flames Licking Fever,” “Bottomless Graves”), and crescendoing just a bit. Alas, each of these builds invariably return to more boring riffs. The riffs themselves are often punctuated by trills, most egregiously in “A Slave to a Poisoned Soul”, which neatly divide measures without adding anything to the overall composition. Eventually, the listener realizes this is the only musical flourish waiting for his ears, and the trills wear as thin as the riffs themselves. There’s certainly nothing wrong with time signature changes or trills, and many bands use them to great effect. However, the abominable simplicity of Deathrite’s toolkit only exacerbates the equally abominable simplicity of their riffcraft.

Like a water balloon being tossed at a brick wall, Flames Licking Fever comes and goes into our lives without leaving any real impact. There is no standout moment here; no particularly great riff, no song worth rewinding over, no air guitar-inducing enthusiasm or grunt-along-in-the-shower vocal phrasing, and beyond the excellent artwork, certainly no pizzazz. There is instead a collection of mid-paced, okay-caliber death adjacent punk riffs. Other than their efforts at a “grand finale” of a closing track, you could even consume the album on shuffle and not dramatically change the listening experience. If you need something peaceful to enjoy while doing your dishes or unwinding after a hard day at work, you might have found a winner here—otherwise there isn’t anything recommending this album over the rest of this year’s releases.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Into Endless Chaos Records
Websites: deathrite.bandcamp.com | de-de.facebook.com/deathrite666
Releases Worldwide: October 18th, 2024

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