9xDead – Cursed

From a land steeped in harsh industrial history and ancient myth come’s a new sound, a new attitude and a new force in dark music.
9xDead come to the fore with a history of growth, rebirth, and reinvention spanning a decade and a sound spanning genre’s. 9xdead explore the depths of depravity inherent in the human soul, a musical mirror to the blackened hearts of the musicians within.
From their early fractured Gothic Punk the 9xdead sound has evolved and become more brutal, more unforgiving by the years, until it became the Dark Rock beast it is today. A wasteland of fury and festering malice played out on menacing vocals, razor sharp guitars, driven by absinthe soaked bass and brutal pounding drums.
Live. 9xDead are uncompromising and take no prisoners, there show’s have won over audiences big and small, and every show is played like their lives depend on it. The band is, and always has been, more than the sum of its parts, and continues to evolve and mutate a malignant disease that hopes to infect the largely barren music scene leaving it changed forever.
Cursed cd review.
If you want uncompromising rock, with a twisted take on the world, then look no further than Welsh dark rockers, 9xDead.
Based in Caerphilly, the band have been around for over a decade in different guises, this version however have only been together for a little over a year, so to write and record an albums worth of tracks in such a short period of time is no mean feat.
The first track is “Diablo”, a very firm grounding in the direction this cd is heading, so let the band take you on a musical journey full of despair, anger, resentment and personal sacrifice. You are immediately drawn into the dark vision of how 9xDead see the world and everything in it.
What sets this band head and shoulders over the rest though, is that they have a singer, and a dam fine one at that, a perfect fit to the 9xDead sound.
Complimenting Gary on drums, and Glenn Newbrook on vocals, the crushing guitar riffs are punched out by Paul Keene and James Radford, all backed up by brutal bass player Miff Guildford.
What you get here is thoughtful, dark rock songs sung with a bitter resentment, not shouted nor screamed, and played with a passion rarely heard.
I love the way the music flows on this cd, from the bitterness of ‘I’m Ruin’ through to the social commentary of ‘Parental Guidance’ to the final nail in this dark coffin, the brilliant closing track ‘Serenity’.
This record is full of malice when it needs to be, but there are gentler moments in there, but overall this is a punishing piece of dark, mean, unforgiving guitar driven rock, sung with a passion to chill your soul.
A deeply disturbing 9/10.

Watch the video to the brilliant dark ballad ‘Serenity’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgLLwg30o0s&list=UUVTvHlNW8c3dGXg5QWbzkww&index=4&feature=plcp
‘El Diablo’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMcJwu1u46k&list=UUVTvHlNW8c3dGXg5QWbzkww&index=3&feature=plcp

“Cursed” will be out on Casket records, on the 26th March 2012.
Tracklist.
01 Diablo
02 The Patriarch
03 Unspoken
04 I’m Ruin
05 Parental Guidance
06 Hollow On The Inside
07 Cursed
08 Betrayed
09 Lullaby
10 Monster
11 Serenity.
9xdead on the web
Facebook
www.9xdead.co.uk

About David Farrell

General Manager and 'THE' competition guy at planetmosh.com. Manager of The Goddanm Electric www.thegde.co.uk, Tour manager for Serpentine, and ex-general Dogsbody at Hammerfest.co.uk. Media partner to numerous bands. Also takes photos, writes reviews and likes classic rock, with a touch of thrash to get the blood flowing.