Dead City Souls: Dead City Souls

Colossal-sounding riff-mungous debut.

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Just over a year in existence, but boasting the professional delivery of a band with at least five years of hard slogging behind them, Stoke’s Dead City Souls sound mightily impressive on this, their debut mini-LP.

Short intro track Embark has the distinct whiff of a spaghetti western showdown about it, all menace and suspense, before the band tear headlong into Back Against wielding a fistful of iron-hard riffs tempered by the kind of chorus that brings to mind a tougher Shinedown.

It’s a formula that works well, with tracks such as Save Me, Breathe and rousing closer Watch The World Burn boasting a formidable degree of songwriting talent and real hunger. Dead City Souls is a very promising calling card indeed./o:p

Essi Berelian

Whether it’s magazines, books or online, Essi has been writing about rock ’n’ metal for around thirty years. He has been reviews editor for Classic Rock and Metal Hammer, rock reviews editor for lads mag Front and worked for Kerrang!. He has also written the Rough Guide to Heavy Metal and contributed to the Rough Guide to Rock and Rough Guide Book of Playlists, and the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles (13th edition). Most fun interview? Tenacious D – Jack Black and Kyle Gass – for The Pick of Destiny movie book. An avid record/CD/tape collector, he’s amassed more music than he could ever possibly listen to, which annoys his wife no end.