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DEATHRAW - REDUCED TO ASHES
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Out February 13 Independently - Deathraw’s Reduced to Ashes is a disciplined exercise in modern thrash restraint. The five track debut runs under half an hour and wastes not even a second of it!
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Formed in France in 2025, Deathraw centers on guitarist Aurélien Gonzalez and bassist-vocalist Eric Walzer, joined by drummer Fabrice Goddi. Their collective background shows in the writing. Riffs are fast and shaped, rooted in Bay Area lineage without mimicking it. Quad-tracked guitars cut cleanly, favoring rhythmic turns over brutal density. The production, handled by Walzer, stays dry and immediate, prioritizing pure impact.
The record opens with Wolves Assemble, a measured escalation that establishes the band’s ethos of tension first, release later. Reduced to Ashes follows with shorter, more direct violence, its anti-corporate collapse narrative mirrored by riffs that burn the candle quick, and leave nothing behind. The Last Testimony slows pace right down without losing pressure, letting melody surface briefly before being buried deep in the noise again. Riot restores the momentum with controlled aggression, and the closer, Post Human, featuring Ol Drake, pushes the record’s central theme to its logical end, humanity erased by the systems it engineered.
Lyrically, the album fixates on power, obedience, and engineered collapse. Nothing is subtle. Nothing needs to be. Reduced to Ashes is a record that understands its limits and operates fully within them. This is a cracking debut that sounds deliberate, and unromantic about the world it describes.
SCORE 9/10
Words by LearnTwoExist
In collaboration with Headbangers Australia