Gomorah, By The Means of Violence

Hailing from right down the road from MouthForWar headquarters, Lynchburg, VA’s own Gomorah do their damnedest to inject some frenzied life into the metalcore genre. Capitalizing on their hardcore roots, the band’s debut album/EP looks to infuse European elements into a fairly bludgeoning blend of brutal death metal, hardcore and death metal with the slightest touch of melodic death metal thrown in for good measure.

You won’t find any cleanly sung choruses on By The Means of Violence. Instead, you’ll be subject to some fairly beefy breakdowns, bruising rhythms and a varied vocal attack — everything from guttural gurgles, pig squeals, raspy screams, and any combination between. It’s a pretty solid effort on the band’s part that could leave you with bruised ribs and a handful of broken teeth if you’re not careful.

Cadence to the Onslaught
This 44 second intro is full of war torn sound clips, atmospheric keyboards and symphonics.

Battle of the Gods
Gomorah open up a hole to heaven and hell to reveal a battle for the ages with massive riffs, layered growls/screams and thundering rhythms. The group settles in to a bit of a groove after the initial headshot and continue to deliver bludgeoning rhythms, evil guitar work and raw vocals. This is a pretty damned strong introduction to the band.

Dawn of a Dead Age
After the brutal beating delivered by the last song, Gomorah shift a bit to a more driving, thrash influenced take on metalcore. It’s aggressive pace is complimented with the periodic breakdown, guitar squeal and tempo shift. The layered vocal delivery really helps this one along as there is a good amount of range in the growls, grunts and screams. There’s a decent solo around 1:25 that’s got an interesting vibe to it.

Sacrilege
Massive drums and crushing riffs start off this nasty track that’s got a much more malevolent feel to it. It’s got a decidedly more metalcore feel to it, but is punctuated with some really aggressive vocals and rhythms. It’s a pretty damned good song.

Excrement
“Excrement” doesn’t sound so much like its namesake, but there are some nasty moments in it. The track opens with chugging riffs and manic drum blasts before deep, guttural vocals swallow you whole. There’s a decent groove to the song that’s highlighted by some spastic and inventive guitar. I’m digging the explosion of riffs around 1:13 after the brief sound clip. There’s a bit more of a Black Dahlia Murder feel to this one that shows a little versatility on the band’s part.

Defending our Rights…
This 53 second track servers more as an intro to the final track than anything else. It’s got some light guitars before fading into the title song.

…By the Means of Violence
The title track has a whole slew of Swedish death metal thrown into their aggressive mix as seen in the opening guitar work and groove. There’s a little looseness in this one where it seems the track gets away from the band a bit, but they rally with driving riffs and an interesting galloping breakdown mid way through the track.

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As far as debut albums go, this one ain’t half bad. It’s a more aggressive approach to metalcore that’s a slight hybrid between that genre and more hardcore influences — without fully being caught up in the “deathcore” label. There’s a good deal of promise in the five full songs on this one that serves to whet your whistle for more to come from Gomorah.

Favorite Tracks:
All of them

Additional Notes:
N/A