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Gehtika- A Monster in Mourning.

West-Midlands based lunatics Gehtika have massively raised their stock in the metal world over the past couple of years.   2013 saw them release their debut EP ‘The Impossible Question’, win 'The Big Noise Evolution BOTB’ and  bag a slot at Bloodstock by winning Birmingham’s 'Metal to the Masses competition’.  They returned to BOA a year later to play a coveted Thursday night spot on the Sophie Lancaster stage before retreating back to the asylum to work on their debut album, at last that album is here…. Opening with the atmospheric 'Apolloyon’ before shredding into life with 'One night: Seven sins’, 'A Monster in Mourning’ is a relentlessly intense release, bouncing and climbing the walls of its padded cell.  Its a dark and sinister blend of musical styles, from pummelling death metal to precision contemporary metal with the occasional splash of deranged carnival atmosphere, but its their black metal influences that seem to shine through the strongest and when they are embraced to their fullest the result is magnificent.  

As a whole the album is an extremely solid slice of extreme metal, full of character and energy, a full on assault of intricate guitars, pounding drums and lyrical insanity.  There isn’t much to complain about, there are moments that seem to go on too long and although the vocals lack somewhat in variety, Mr. Knight more than makes up for it with his strong rhythmic style and sickening delivery.

In conclusion, 'A Monster in Mourning’ is a very strong debut album with the potential to push Gehtika on to even bigger things in the near future, it is very definitely worth your time, fucking spiffing.

Stand-out tracks:

One night: Seven sins- Sets the tone for what’s to come as well as filling you in on the background of the story to follow.

The Massaquerade- Intense, bouncy, stormer of a track telling the story of a masquerade massacre.

On the lead up to Gehtika’s release of A Monster In Mourning next month, the extreme metal quintet have unleashed the first single and video for ‘One Night :Seven Sins’. The band once again teamed up with Wil Henry of Silent Syndicate Productions, someone who Gehtika had worked with on their 'Impossible Question’ music video. Watch 'One Night : Seven Sins’ Here! http://youtu.be/AFkFo__rHbk Vocalist Anthony Knight comments, “The whole album follows a dark fantasy tale and 'One Night : Seven Sins’ is the opening track and the catalyst for all the events that follow.” “There are three characters in this track; The Prince (who’s played by Prok from Morgue Orgy), The Serving Girl & Lady Morgana Mai and none of them get off to a particularly good start! It’s two nights before The Prince and Lady Morgana are due to be wed, but the Prince is a bit of a 'playboy’ and decides to have his way with The Serving Girl (naughty!) For reasons unknown at this point in the story Morgana, during her sleep, she is given sight of these deceitful events unfolding and awakes 'with a panic and a hellish fright’. A grimoire lays at the foot of her bed; open and inviting, she’s drawn to it and begins to read.” “In her anger and emotionally fragile state she reads through the hateful curses of the grimoire and condemns the shallow, devious Prince to life both faceless and nameless… much to the shock of both the Prince and the Serving Girl, who flees at the sight of his face falling away.” “Morgana becomes consumed by the corruption and power of the book, 'transcending humanity’. The spell convinces the Prince that the Serving Girl is to blame, so he will relentlessly hunt poor innocent peasant girls in his obsessive quest to put the culprit to the pyre and lift the curse… only with every innocent life he takes, Morgana’s new powers will grow.” In the video we have Bryanne (who plays Lady Morgana Mai), as herself to begin with, entering a darkened empty room and then suddenly getting these flashes of distant memories, which aren’t her own. The band effectively 'narrate’ the story while Bryanne becomes possessed by the visions; reliving Morgana’s transcendence from a woman scorned to a corrupted witch… and it would appear that even after her visions have ceased, Morgana perhaps hasn’t…" “Myself and Topher co-directed certain scenes but all credit really needs to go to Wil – he’s done a fantastic job getting the right shots, the feel of the song and the editing is fantastic!”

GEHTIKA: Unveil “A Monster In Mourning” Artwork

The English midlands extreme metal quintet GEHTIKA recently revealed details about their forthcoming release, “A Monster In Mourning”, slated for release 17th August 2015. Now Gehtika have unveiled the album artwork which can be seen below. “The artwork was created by an insanely talented friend of ours, Scott Davidson,” states vocalist Anthony Knight. “We worked with him on our Impossible…

Gehtika’s highly anticipated debut album A Monster In Mourning is out now! And to commemorate the release the extreme metal quintet have unveiled a new video for the title track using footage shot in the studio during the tracking of the album.

Watch ‘A Monster In Mourning’ Here! https://youtu.be/YJS1zjQcJJU

Vocalist Anthony Knight comments on releasing the album, “… the word ‘finally’ comes to mind! It seems so long ago that we were in the studio recording it so to be finally releasing it is pretty exciting for us. Obviously our Kickstarter backers have been listening to it for a couple of weeks, but now we get to unleash this beast on the masses!”

“The reviews and feedback so far has been truly amazing; we’ve seriously been taken aback by the kind words we’ve had from fans, friends, peers, reviewers and even a few people who aren’t really into metal, let alone black/death metal, who’ve said they really enjoyed it due to all the layers we’ve given each song and the atmosphere we’ve managed to create. We’ve had some great quotes from reviewers too… my personal favourite being from Dan Perks at Midlands Rocks who said, ‘A Monster In Mourning feels like a shot of energy into a genre that, for me, was hanging out of its arse. This deserves to be the album that sees Gehtika signed by a label and moving on to bigger things’. Purely for the “hanging out of it’s arse” part if I’m honest [laughs]. We’re super stoked with the reception so far; now we just want to get as many people listening to the album and coming to see our live shows as possible!”

A Monster In Mourning is out now and is available on Bandcamp here: https://gehtika.bandcamp.com/

Gehtika interview at Bloodstock 2014

I had the pleasure of chatting to the guys from Gehtika after their spiffing set on Thursday at this year’s Bloodstock.

This was the first of my inteviews that got “inteviewed bombed” over the weekend ;) This one was done by Simon Hall!

We discuss their set, the band, what they have been up to since theI had the pleasure of chatting to the guys from Gehtika after their spiffing set on Thursday…

Bloodstock Open Air – Thursday (August 7th) by Dennis.

Bloodstock is thankfully here with us once again with another 4 days of true metal but before the 3 main days the Sophie Lancaster stage hosts 5 bands on Thursday night, highlighting the wealth of UK metal. Opening act Stoke On Trent based Balls Deep wasted no time in stamping their authority to a packedBloodstock is thankfully here with us once again with another 4 days of true metal but before…

Gehtika at Bloodstock 2014

Gehtika played Bloodstock on Thursday evening, and were the only band to have a table set for tea on stage and the only band to use a confetti cannon. They put in a great set too. Here are some photos of their set…

[flickrapi user=”planet mosh” get=”photoset” id=”72157646225070900” size=”z” count=”100”]Gehtika played Bloodstock on Thursday evening, and were the only band to have a table set for…

FINALLY. A live picture of me with my band that I at least half like!

And my vocalist looks HILARIOUS: double score.