Album Review: Gallows - Gallows

Album Review: Gallows – Gallows

From the viewpoints of the many, losing an iconic frontman such as Frank Carter could be seen as paralysing the foundations of a band like Gallows. However such a ludicrous statement is turned upside down by the extended middle finger and grab by the throat testament of Gallows’ third full length.

After finding their feet with new vocalist Wade MacNeil (Canadian punk veteran of Alexisonfire and Black Lungs fame) on the ‘Death Is Birth’ EP the band have now returned with their self-titled offering, a concrete 32 minute slab engraved with their most focused and most resilient battle hardened anthems.

Harpooning your ears with Stu’s thick coiling basslines, Wade’s guttery bile filled vocals, the fantastic dirty snake like riffery from Steph and Lags, and Lee’s steady trudging drum beats, ‘Gallows’ shoots an adrenaline bullet into all five senses causing the body to malfunction into an unwakeable seizure that’ll leave your lifeless corpse smiling.

Circle pit inducing songs like ‘Vapid Adolescent Blues’ will drive you cannibalistic till your limbs fall off, while the likes of songs such as ‘Austere’ are so infectious that they will cause your blood cells to go rabid and give you a sharp heart attack. Through all this vicious mayhem, the sudden quieter and eerie moments found on ‘Depravers’ and ‘Everybody Loves You (When You’re Dead)’ keep you on your tense toes until the teeth of the band’s gaping jaws latch on again.

Although the lyrics of this record aren’t ground breaking, they are short, simple and have enough of a fiery delivery to make you feel inspired to run towards the toughest of walls regardless of the pain and agony that such a seemingly foolish act may bring upon you because at the end of the day all that matters is that the primary goal can be achieved. The huge littering of gang vocals that envelope this record are pleasurably addictive from “A.C.A.B.!” on ‘Last June’ to “In us we trust!” on ‘Victim Culture’ to the never ending woahs found on ‘Outsider Art’.

What we have here is a note filled with the boldest of statements; in fact not a statement, but a warning. This third full length from Gallows shows a band who are not yet dead, in fact they are a band that have only just begun.

4/5

‘Gallows’ by Gallows is out now on Venn Records (UK)/Bridge Nine (US).