“This Face” is now available worldwide and critical acclaim has continued.
Thee extreme/experimental/industrial metal scene has a potential new ruler here, with the doomic and disturbing debut of Gnaw. …this new project, seems to take up where Dubin’s previous bands left off, but in a direction much more deviant & eccentric. The claustrophobic chaos… ought to determine pretty quick if this is for you or not. …Extreme indeed, and all right with us! …if you like some strange surprises in your grim glitchtronic avant-metal music, and moreover enjoy the varied vokill stylings of Mr. Dubin, you’ll want Gnaw’s Your Face at your place.
[GNAW] create the newest signpost in extreme music. Over the course of 50 minutes the quintet aurally accosts the listener with myriad squeaks, squeals, and good old fashioned doom. Gnaw has a strong industrial feel – both dissonant rock and abrasive noise sections trudge mechanically forward like an electric hate golem.
the production clarity and density yields an awesome heaviness and immediacy that far exceeds that of most of Gnaw’s peers. Obviously, this much hate and dissonance is difficult to listen to in an album-sized dose, but that only indicates how impressively Gnaw have succeeded. This Face is an overwhelming monolith of uncompromising and malevolent nastiness.
expectations run feverishly high for this one, and within the first minute, this slab of molten hatred pays off in spades. …If you are looking for the perfect merging of brutal noise, bleak industrial beats and charred black metal vocals, or just general dementia locking horns with pure evil, look no further. 8.5/10
GNAW’s debut album This Face opens with a maelstrom of noise and the intensity rarely lets up for a moment thereafter. Piercing the thrashing firestorm generated by the instrumentalists—are eviscerating vocals by Alan Dubin (ex-Khanate, OLD) which sound as if he’s singing while someone’s ripping out his vocal cords with a razor blade. In a word, This Face is clearly not for the faint of heart.
…in its best moments, like the opener Haven Vault, the horror tension is absolutely palpable. Waiting for percussion to enter in Haven Vault is like waiting for the other shoe to drop, only to land in the palms of a synthesizer with its icy fingers running down your back. Factory noise and mechanical conveyor pressure of Feelers is unyielding and unforgiving, then it suddenly collapses, dissolved into some big blue yonder, before the industrial civilization can make its last throes. Rhythmic locomotive of Shard put me in the state of hypnotic bubbly trance to the point I almost ran my car off the road.
Way Too Loud, actually our first tepid review.
…those who can get into “This Face” will find it a harsh, terrorizing world.