After 3 long years, Singapore based high octane crossover thrash hardcore punks DECEASED are back with a wild ass EP called “The Void of No Return”, delivering a crushing mix of classic thrash and modern crossover hardcore in the vain of Power Trip, Iron Age and Inhuman Nature. Just released on tapes via Injustice Records in EU and Nuclear Family Records in the UK, the new power offering solidifies the angst, unease and frustration of what it is to face the world in the 2020/2021 era and becomes a serious contender for one of the sickest thrash EPs of the year.
Deceased was formed in early 2016 as a groove-styled hardcore with a little hint of punk influences.
“We ironically called it quits 2 years later as the fire died out, mainly due to National Service, and each of us was busy with our own sidebands.” says the band. “In 2018, Endry, our bassist, was looking to form a band that eventually led us back together again. Only after we got back together, is when we realized that we need to find our own identity and we felt that groove-style hardcore is not what we really wanted to play.”
“We, as a band is heavily influenced by hardcore bands like Turnstile, Snapcase, Backtrack, Terror, and Madball. At the same time, we are also crazily influenced by thrash metal/metal bands like Lowest Creature, Power Trip, Violator, Havok, Slayer, and Evile. That’s when we thought it all through and try to incorporate hardcore and thrash metal/metal together. “The Void Of No Return” is our frankenstein-ic love child. This is our approach to bind both genres together as one, a genre that is full of endless blasting energy and the utmost form of expression.”
Asked about the background for their lyrics, the band explains that their lyrics “are often about our own struggles within the journeys the questions and the frustration we have experienced throughout our lives, as for our band sound we are working towards our own brand of crossover and we draw inspiration from any genre possible as all of us in the band have different influences.”
Track by track commentary:
Intro
A intro for the headbanging lads out there before we go crazy on VONR.
The Void Of No Return
The Void of no return is a song that depicts the struggles of life that many are facing. Where we tend to submit ourself into darkness and let all the negative thoughts take over our mind. Some goes through a deep state of depression thus it will led them to meet thier end. Depression is not something we want to take lightly. In the lyrics, “Nothing is left, so you pray for death”. Death is not a solution for everything and we have to appreciate everyone around us. A simple “how are you” goes a long way. Be there for those who needs help. The world is a much better place to live in this way.
Resurrection
Resurrection is a straight up full blasting thrash track which tells a message to those whose having time in life. To rise up and get back on track as there is alot of opportunity out there waiting for them. Especially currently we are facing a horrible Covid-19 world pendemic and due to it, most lost their jobs and businesses.
Forever
As stated before, Deceased has gone through alot and ever since we formed back again, the thought of giving up was never there. We will give everything we got . We wasnt given any support from our supposedly “close” friends to begin with. Telling us to just call it quits and don’t play at all. Of course we are saddened and angry when we were told so but this is also an opportunity to prove them wrong. So this song is dedicated to them and to show them we will never stop crafting our own music and we will be here to stay, forever.
Stomp
A song reminiscing our hardcore days with a little mix of our new sound. It’s an older song we wrote back in 2017. We kept most of the song’s rhythmic integrity while adding a faster, punchier groove. A little throwback to our older listeners (as if we had any).
Continued below – scroll down for loads of other international and Singaporean bands worth looking into!
“Local underground and extreme Scene in Singapore is really small,so pretty much everyone know each other or have a lot of friends from different scenes.” – admit DECEASED. “We don’t have the luxury of a lot of venues here in Singapore as our country and market for our kind of music is relatively small due to our small population and lack of space, but still we still are around and strong, shoutout to some of our past venues, “Decline”, hood bar, Pink Noize, Analog factory & LiveAMP studios all of this venues have ceased operations due to various reasons but they sure helped the scene in many ways to grow and have shows. We still have existing venues such as Lithe house tonehouse studios Aliwal arts Centre, Esplanade and the Substation, the Substation is the oldest venue we have and still supporting us we love to thank all of them for keeping the Singapore scene alive and well all this years.”
Asked for their opinion about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their local music scene, they continue: “The covid pandemic however has taken a little of us lately as most shows involving international bands such as Slipknot etc or local band gigs have been cancelled or rescheduled but we are glad a lot of the local bands are working hard to write, record and release music, sell merchandise or little things like instastories to keep fans and friends updated on their respective bands, some of course chose to take a short break as due to the pandemic and its economic impact, quite a number lost their jobs and had to find other jobs or work longer hours. We did have some livestream shows though that we managed to enjoy but nothing compares to liveshows,meeting friends and hanging out at gigs.”
“Perhaps the only positive thing about the current pandemic is that we have a little more time to spare on the band apart from our full time jobs and studies. We are now in process of writing a full length. We will be exploring more into each of our own influences collectively, working to fuse it together in a more fresh approach to the style of crossover we play, of course there is going to be loads of headbanging and moshin in our album (we hope), while also paying homage to legendary bands and their style. The full length is certainly going to be darker in depth.” – teases the band.
Bands worth checking out, by DECEASED:
Amuk, Take Offense, Critical Defiance, Chemicide, Asidhara, Drain, Thrashwall, Traitor, Diskelmä.
Singaporean bands we’d love the rest of world to check out, if they haven’t
- Rudra (Vedic Metal pioneers)
- B.C (powerviolence)
- Witchseeker (heavy metal warriors)
- Dezaster (thrash metal)
- Bloodstone (thrash metal)
- Darah (deathmetal)
- Assault (deathmetal)
- False Gharial (modern metal)
- Virtues (melodic hardcore)
- Tides (melodic hardcore)
- Radigals (hardcore)
- 2Fold (hardcore)
- Hollow Threat (hardcore)
- Subsonic Eye (noise rock)
“We have many more but the lack of space to mention. All of this bands are on spotify, do have a listen!” – concludes the band.
