 
I discovered Deadlock in my early teens; when
trying to form a band with the same name I did
a Google search to see if there was any band with
that name and here we are! 3 albums along since
I’ve known who they are. This band encompass
everything I love in metal; they have some very
distinctive guitar work from both melodic and
gritty sides of their music, there is 2 singers
a male screaming vocalist and a female clean melodic
vocalist, and they transition between each other
during songs amazingly well.
I will definitely say about this album that it’s
a lot more experimental and progressive than previous
albums. You could say the previous albums started
to get a bit samey towards the end but in this
album they’ve pushed the boundaries and
experimented with different styles of playing
and different types of riffs. Each song has its
own little distinctive style to it that all builds
off the foundations that they lay with their distinctive
metal style on previous efforts.
I just love the way that within each song the
styles flow so easily through one another when
they are so different but they never clash just
integrate beautifully. This quality is a big theme
and runs through the majority of the album starting
with the opening track “Virus Jones”
which is a really heavy death metal tune with
really nice progressive elements and plays with
timings and then toning it back with use of harmonious
sounding chorus’s with Sabine Scherer’s
beautifully ranged clean vocals that are stupidly
catchy. This structure is the hook the band has,
you can go out of control then bring it back and
sing along before the chaos reignites; this can
also be said for “Falling Skywards”
and “Brutal Romance” which follow
the same structure. “Brutal Romance”
has a very violent lyrical content whilst sounding
very sweet which makes a very interesting listen.
“Earthlings” Is a damn good song but
it starts off with more of a metalcore edge than
a melodic death metal one like the rest but then
the tone drops back into the brutal flow of things
yet keeps the more metalcore riff and repeats
it at points during the song for a good mix. “You
Left Me For Dead” Is the same style as this
except a lot less death metal.
Not all songs are massive metal songs, there are
a few songs that have little or no screaming at
all in them such as “State of Decay”
which has big riffs and a belting chorus and is
just Sabine singing all the way through showcasing
the range of her vocals with a metal backing but
too heavy. Also the ballad “Paranoid Extravaganza”
is piano and clean vocals all the way through
and has quite a creepy eerie edge to it, it reminds
me of “My Immortal” by Evanessence
in places but the differing in tones throws it
off from being a copy.
This album is possibly the best the band has written
in their career and could be a sparking point
for them to really take off this year and see
them on some big tours.
4/5
Review by James Webb
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