Gary Steel
GHETTO SUNRISE IS described as a “drum and base band” in the promotional literature, and I’m happy to report that I got a cheap laugh out of that wee faux pas, which in part made up for the torture of having to listen to the Auckland group’s frankly abominable 13-track debut.
I should perhaps have taken heed of their own recommendation/warning: “Ghetto Sunrise bombastically [my italics] fuses hard-edged drum and bass and pulsing dubstep with smatterings of Bristol-inspired trip-hop, all under the influence of a heavy metal rhythm section.” Promise, or threat?
Let us not beat around the bush: this is the worst thing I’ve heard all year. It’s an aesthetic trashcan, with the very limpest iterations of drum and bass cliché vying for sonic space with rancid rapping and ineffectually grinding guitars.
Add to that rudimentary beats, dire keyboard synths on horrid “string” settings, and sound that’s so bad you wonder if it was all recorded on a $99 Transonic karaoke machine.
It makes you wonder why they even bothered. GARY STEEL
Sound = 2 Stars
Music = 1 Star
