The Red Shore
Unconsecrated
Siege of Amida Records
10 November 2008

by Hugh Platt

Tour buses have got it in for metal bands – just look at the bodycount of metallers they’ve clocked up. Cliff Burton: crushed. Randy Rhoads, killed after clipping his tour bus in a microlight aircraft. Witold Kieltyka, drummer with Decapitated, dead when their bus crashed into a wood truck.

In December of last year, The Red Shore became another victim to tour buses’ aversion to all things metal, when a tour bus crash claimed the life of their vocalist, Damien Morris. Deciding to continue with bassist, Jamie Hope, on vocals, the band forged on to complete Unconsecrated. Accompanying the record is a DVD documentary, providing a starkly open account of the whole tragedy.

In the wake of such events, it’d be nice to say that this is a classic record; a slice of post-millennial deathcore that captures the metal-zeitgeist, and highlights how sad the loss of Damien Morris’ talent was at such a young age. But it’s not and it doesn’t.

It’s credible cut of technical death metal, sure, but at no point does Unconsecrated feel like it’s got the brutality to string you up on a meathook. The album’s fulcrum, ‘The Architects of Repulsion’ features no fewer than four guest vocalists – Eddie Hermida of All Shall Perish, Brandan Schieppati of Bleeding Through, Karl Schubach of Misery Signals and Daniel Weyandt of Zao – and feels tokenistic as a result.

Watch The Red Shore play ‘Flesh Couture’ live

There’s a guttural grind to tracks like ‘The Forefront of Failure’, but Unconsecrated never riffs hard enough, shreds fiercely enough, or growls malevolently enough to elevate it beyond being a musical monolith to their fallen bandmate. The Red Shore have dark depths to draw strength from, but without the go-for-the-throat instincts of someone like Job For A Cowboy, they could be set to drown in them.

4/6

The Red Shore – Unconsecrated tracklisting

The Garden of Impurity
Misery Hymn
Deception: Prologue
Slain By The Serpent
The Architects of Repulsion
Your Chariot Awaits
Rise and Fall
The Forefront of Failure
Nephilim
Vehemence The Phoenix