We haven’t seen York’s metalcore group Glamour Of The Kill drop an album in 13 years, that’s a long damn time. We had a brief glimmer of a revival in 2018 where they dropped 2 singles after announcing their return, teeing up a brand new album that never came. I was besotted with the band since their self-titled EP dropped in 2008, they blended together what was great about the different metalcore acts at the time, with Davey Richmond’s vocals providing hook after hook. All the members are OGs apart from new rhythm guitarist/backing vocalist Sam Brookes.Â
“Grace of God” dropped first and just seeing their name come up shook me like a bottle of Coca-Cola, it's different to the band I once knew that’s for sure, initially I wasn’t a fan and longed for the past, it’s much darker in theme, replacing the sweet sounding riffs and hooks with coarse tones, just generally heavier and more malevolent. The album's title track “Vengeance” dropped second, I picture soldiers marching through the gates of hell towards unspeakable horrors with this playing in the background, it builds and ramps up in tempo with each verse but retains that gloomy unsettling ambience.By the time we got to “Feed Them To The Pigs” I was starting to vibe with this rebirth, it reminds me of Scream Aim Fire era Bullet For My Valentine but a bit more refined, that comparison kind of captures my feelings at this stage as I did enjoy Scream Aim Fire, but was it their best era? “Suffer” was the final single before the whole thing dropped, the impressing thing for me on this one is Richmond’s vocals have really developed, slightly lower on the pitch unless it calls for it, a sinister edge again when called upon, it feels the range between both sets of vocals is much broader as the track chugs along with it. “Rampage” is very brash and in your face, very aptly named I’d say, another alternative would have been the neck snapper with that riff, it's like a leech it sinks its teeth into your neck and it's all over. “The Forgotten” is like it's musical kindred spirit with it's heaviness but whilst employing similar speed and aggression they also manage to switch up and scale it back to a more solid and steady pace for its melodic but solemn chorus.
I was a very enthusiastic GOTK fan, from the Self titled EP in 2008 right up until their second full length Savages dropped in 2013 and they disbanded, my interest peaked arguably with their first album The Summoning. This revival is quite a far cry from those days, it's a lot darker this time around whereas their older material was quite upbeat and melodic, I like what they’ve done here and I’m quite keen to see how they move forward with it but a significant sized part of me longs for the old days, maybe it's because I’m old now and wish I wasn’t.
