When Frank Carter announced he was leaving Gallows in July, many though the band was over, after all, Frank’s unmistakable vocals were seen by many to be the focal point of the band’s sound.But After months of speculation the band announced they would continue with none other than Wade MacNeil as their frontman.
Our first sampler of Wade era Gallows came in the form of True Colours. An unrelenting blast of scathing, angry hardcore, lasting only 37 seconds.
It seems the “short but sweet fucking furious” mantra is one they carried on to the new EP, Death Is Birth. The four tracks on offer last just over seven and a half minutes, so it’s very hard to judge this new line-up on these songs alone.
Mondo Chaos opens the EP, with MacNeil preaching that the world is “fucked”, so it’s not exactly far off of what the band were doing on Grey Britain.
Wade’s vocals fit superbly into Gallows sound, they definitely chose the right man to replace Frank. Obviously the music sounds like Gallows, and one of the reasons Gallows were so successful was that the musicians in this band were really fucking good.
Hate! Hate! Hate! sounds like it would fit perfectly into Grey Britain and the title track is a bloody great hardcore song, Wade’s screams of “Death Is Birth” signify a new beginning in the band’s history.
The only real bad point about this EP is the way it has been produced. The first version of True Colours we heard sounded angry and raw, while the EP version sounds watered down. If Death Is Birth had been produced to sound as raw and “punk rock” as the initial version of True Colours, we’d have a right monster on our hands.
It wouldn’t be fair to judge Gallows 2.0 on this EP alone, we’ll see what they are really capable of when we finally hear a full length album. But Death Is Birth is a great release and it shows a lot of promise. There might be life after Frank after all.
