Album Review: Dead Before Mourning – Killing Time (DBM Records)

Dead Before Mourning are a south-east England based metal band who got our attention this year by winning the 2018 London leg of Bloodstock Festival’s Metal 2 The Masses competition. They played the New Blood Stage at Bloodstock 2018 and made a serious impact.

We also had the pleasure of talking with the guys a few hours before they hit the stage and you can watch that video below.

Back in May 2018 they released their debut album, Killing Time. A nine-track heavy effort that makes a hell of a lot of noise. The good kind though. The kind that gets your head banging along, your fist in the air and the metal juices flowing.

Thrash metal at its core, the album is a wicked combination of hard riffs, dirty bass groove and classic vocals that switch between roars and clean singing nicely.

The chorus of Don’t Weep for Me is the first thing that really perks the ears up before a short mid-point guitar solo gets the blood pumping. The pace of Damage Wake is enough to bring you to your knees and praise the gods of metal before Will We Ever Learn harks back to the thrash classics of old.

Dead Before Mourning are purveyors of taking the classic thrash sound and giving it a fresh injection of the modern. While that isn’t unique in itself, there is plenty to love about this fledging British band doing it so well.

Black Sails, The Whip and Brink keep things ticking along nicely with a constant flurry of hard-hitting riffs, ear-blasting percussion and ferocious vocals. It sticks long after it has hit.

It is exhausting though, with the constant stream of heaviness that the four-piece send our way. Hardly a complaint though, not when the meatiness of the Jack the Ripper inspired ‘The Surgeon in Black’ rips and tears at the body and soul.

If there’s one track that doesn’t quite catch fire as well as the rest, it is probably Succubus, the penultimate track. The rhythm is fairly forgettable and beyond some flashy guitar flourishes it doesn’t stand out from the pack.

No matter though as the rest of the album is solid gold ending with the 7+ minute Eye Spy and arguably the best track on the album. Here, Dead Before Mourning throw their all into delivering a ferocious tribute to all things thrash.

Dead Before Mourning – Killing Time Full Track Listing:

1. Don’t Weep For Me
2. Damage Wake
3. Will We Ever Learn
4. Black Sails
5. The Whip
6. Brink
7. The Surgeon in Black
8. Succubus
9. Eye Spy

You can pick up the physical CD and merchandise over on Dead Before Mourning’s online store here. The album is also available on Spotify, Deezer, iTunes and via Amazon below. Find out more/keep up to date with Dead Before Mourning news by checking out their website, Facebook Page, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

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