DEATHRAW – Reduced To Ashes

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5.5

• Bands:
  DEATHRAW
• Duration: 00:28:23
• Available from: 02/13/2026

Streaming not yet available

In a technological-musical period in which producing a bad record is practically impossible, or if we want, unlikely, despite the proverbial static nature of the term (some records actually appear all the same), there are other components that come into play, covering the primary role, to define and characterize an album.
If a few years ago a good idea could be penalized by a poor sound performance, damaging the work of the various performers, today, as mentioned above, each of them places themselves at the starting blocks with the same tools.
So what does it take to win (in a broad sense, obviously)? What is needed to avoid falling into general anonymity or into the simpler but, alas, increasingly widespread case of 'sounds the same as everyone else'? An official recipe does not exist, and if there were, it has not yet been exploited by DeathRaw, a French thrash metal band grappling with their official debut.

Power trio formed by Eric Walzer (bass and vocals), Aurélien Gonzalez (guitar) and Fabrice Goddi (drums), the transalpine group offers us this “Reduced To Ashes”, divided into five tracks in which the leader of Evile, Ol Drake, also appears as the second guitarist in the song “Post Human”.
Deathraw's assault is based on two main keys: aggression and technicality, distributed equally throughout the scheduled half hour. With them, a basic raw and unfiltered approach, in order to constitute the typical plot of a thrash album. And up to this point, nothing to complain about.
If, on the subject of impetuosity, the trio takes us in the footsteps of bands such as Evile (yes, them), on the technical side, however, some flashes of Revocation style are intercepted in Aurélien's six-string work: it is precisely the guitars that offer a clear and imposing sound, structured around atypical chord progressions, combined with decisive rhythmic variations.
The midtempo passages (listen to “The Last Testimony”) finally offer a light melodic breath, within which Aurélien's solos manage to give expressive depth to the whole; for his part, Walzer offers a vocal performance that is both angry and clear.

Well, the ingredients are all there, but in our opinion one is missing, the most important one – and it's called personality, character, creativity: an element that practically never appears in “Reduced To Ashes” or, if it exists, remains perpetually obscured; a basic deficiency that flattens and standardizes the entire work, including that of individual musicians. Let's take Walzer's work for example: his tone is peremptory, categorical, but stimulates very few emotional vibrations; his complaint seems more to be read than shouted, as would be appropriate in cases like these.
This flaw is also reflected in the global context: there are some interesting ideas both in the title track and in “Riot”, but both songs remain linked to the main idea of ​​'doing the task well', without leaving the security perimeter.
We know that the band is already working on new material and is looking for a fourth member: the hope is that this double activity will also give rise to the idea to add that extra degree of temperament, useful for granting greater recognition to what will be expressed in the future.