:: Mendeed - The Dead Live By Love

Mendeed

In a little over a year since the release of their debut full length album ‘This War Will Last Forever’, Scottish metal act Mendeed is back with its sophomore effort ‘The Dead Live By Love’, and what an improvement they’ve made.
While the bulk of ‘This War Will Last Forever’ was based around an amalgamation of melodic death metal and metalcore, ‘The Dead Live By Love’ sees the five piece act clearly stretching their sound even further, with elements of thrash and high octane power/speed metal being incorporated into their hybrid mix of genre influences. Setting out with the speed of lightning, ‘Burning Fear’ sets the tone of the album with the dual guitarists laying down a blistering pace tempo wise, while vocalist Proctor evenly divides his vocal lines between his growled efforts and the more melodic aspect of his voice, revealing a catchier chorus amongst the more ferocious moments. ‘The Fight’ is every bit as fast and melodic as the opener, while the title track ‘The Dead Live By Love’ is the first track on the album to shift down a couple of gears, making way for a far thrashier sound. For the remainder of the album, Mendeed continue to up the ante in regards to all out speed with tracks such as ‘Fuel The Fire’, ‘Gravedigger’ and ‘Blood Brothers’, but it’s songs such as the anthem based ‘Our War’, ‘Through Dead Eyes’, ‘It’s Not Over Yet’ and the powerful closer ‘Thirteen’ where Mendeed really excel at blurring the lines between any one genre classification, with whole a host of influences coming to the fore. Compared to ‘This War Will Last Forever’, ‘The Dead Live By Love’ is a huge improvement from the band in terms of production, songwriting and a greater consistency overall, all of which signal a far more promising future for the Scots than twelve months ago.