Filth "Tales From The Gutter"

Tales From The Gutter showcases more of what we've come to love from the beatdown community. Slick production, disgustingly low tuned guttural guitars, and respectable Animal-esque throwdowns behind the skins. While the voice can certainly sound a little overwhelming at times, it often portrays different angles, often diving into Emmure territory when things seem to lose interest musically.

     There is no showing off here with detailed intricacies and buzz saw guitars. It's more of just a relentless pummeling that throws the listener into dangerous territory right from the start. We may even be able to go to some of the other beatdown reviews captured in this blog and they could quite possibly apply here. The biggest drawback of this collection is the nonsense samples of cave lurking that waste time on the first few tracks of the EP. In such a short batch it's crucial to stay punctual and display what you're capable of. Otherwise what are we even listening to? If it's a three song EP and the first song is a thirty second sample, it's pretty much a single we just picked up. 

     What is nice however is Filth's proof of concept. Downtempo is yet to penetrate the mainstream hardcore community. Perhaps Black Tongue is about as close as we've gotten, or maybe Traitors are coming up enough where we can say they've "broken" into the community. It's not as if that tour with Barrier did any of those bands any good and The Last Ten Seconds Of Life aren't exactly downtempo having gone completely off the wagon with their latest release. 

     We never see bills with these bands as the openers and it's a shame because there seems to be so damn many of them just standing by waiting to collapse within. Just like Volumes and Northlane were once on the outside with the djent community being a subgenre of a subgenre of a subgenre, I can only imagine it's a matter of time before some of these kids from the suburbs will pitch in for that Econoline and hit the road themselves to get attention. Or maybe it's going to take another Sumerian Records to come around and scoop all these bands together and create a label especially for them. Just like Born Of Osiris, After The Burial, The Facless, and Veil Of Maya didn't have a home before Ash got involved, maybe the same is about to happen here.