Review of Mendeed - The Dead Live By Love

The Dead Live By Love is the sophomore full-length (their second in less than a year) from Scottish upstarts, Mendeed. The band plays thrashy melodic death metal that features a ton of punchy, energetic lead playing that borders on virtuosic at some points, but is ultimately a little samey and predictable. While there are some scattered groovy riffs, I wouldn’t call them breakdowns and I certainly wouldn’t consider Mendeed a metalcore band. Their mix of influences reminds me of Trivium or Children of Bodom mixed with a version of Into Eternity that features less character and variation, both vocally and musically.

The majority of the material on The Dead Live By Love consists of fast-paced shreddy riffing that alternates between thrash, power, and death territories with upper-midrange screams with clean sung passages sparsely included. Rather than being completely bloated poppy melodies, the cleans have more of a gritty power metal feel to them without trying to sound epic. They get a slightly pitchy and arguably off-key from time to time, but are solid on the whole. “Gravedigger” has more than adequate heaviness via some chugging rhythms that, as stated above, are simply not very closely related to hardcore. The only track that is blatantly metalcore influenced is “Blood Brothers,” which has a faux-brutal breakdown that belies the preceding Maiden gallops and thrashy riffing.

As far as the production is concerned, the guitar tone has adequate heft and clarity, although a little more of each would probably be to the benefit of the band. The bass is almost non-existent in mix and while the kick drum isn’t the worst offender of clickiness and triggering, it’s still barely identifiable as a drum. On the whole, the production is fairly standard, but thankfully isn’t another super glossy melodeath job.

Among other albums that similarly and wrongfully get lumped in with metalcore, I’ll take something like Fear My Thoughts’ Vulcanus over The Dead Live by Love, however I will say that from a talent standpoint, Mendeed definitely has it in them to create something that will make a bigger impact. I don’t think these guys have quite hit their stride yet, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they can come up with in the future.

Release Details

Mendeed

The Dead Live By Love

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