Review: “The Middle Farm Experiment” EP by No Worth Of Man
After a 5 year hiatus from music, Farnborough trio comprising Vocalist Pete Gale, Guitarist Alex Punchard and Drummer Gareth Lucas returned to the scene with a singular mission. To create funk infused heavy hitting modern Metal. Recorded at the iconic Middle Farm Studios in Devon with engineer Chris Edkins, the bands newly released second EP “The Middle Farm Experiment” is a trio of of tracks to follow up their 5 track 2017 debut release “Initium Novum”.
Starting with “I Defy” No Worth Of Man deliver the kind of menacing atmospheric introduction that bands with 10 times the budget struggle to get right. The riffage and drum work appears with rapid fire urgency and technical proficiency. The tight and organic nature of the music is obvious from the very start and that’s because aside from the vocal isolation booth, the band recorded as a group as live. What that does it capture the energy of their live set and bring it to the studio – again something that other bands struggle with. “Alarmus” has more of a groove feel while delivering both melodically and with a pace and energy that No Worth Of Man bring to all their material. Pete Gale’s gutteral delivery sounds like he has been garggling gravel and it the heavier counter balance to some of the more thrash oriented riffage. “Those of Our Kind” continues the consistent high quality of the trio of tracks as Gale delivers a blood curdlingly brutal vocal display around his lyrical prowess. There are a couple of moments where he pushes his voice to its limits but manages to pull it back, the strain only adding to the chill of the tracks darkness. The Trashier overtones give the likes of early Lamb of God a run for their money and the synth passage closing just makes you want to push play on the 9 minute affair again. The quality of the recording, mixing and mastering is about as close to perfect as it gets, giving every element of the bands sound space to breathe in its own right. The drums are crisp and clean while the guitar tone itself is ideally suited to sit in th mix behind the vocals. [8/10]
“The Middle Farm Experiment” by No Worth Of Man is out now and available via iTunes.