Let’s clear this up, because I can see people getting confused. Despite the name, and the fancy-looking logo, Gut aren’t brutal death metal or gore-grind. Instead they showcase a polished mix of hardcore stomp and Pantera/Exhorder US style thrash, with the odd, brief, Slayer nod. The opening gambit of Shrubbery sadly does not detail the demands of shrieking knights in a forest, but a catchy, heavy groove with clipped hardcore-meets-metal vocals, and as such ‘Smoking Man’ is the best track on the EP.
The production here is great, Shrubbery really leaps out of your stereo, with the bass in particular coming through well. The EP flags over the middle three tracks before picking up to a solid closer, ‘The Butcher’. Perhaps these guys need to pen a few more ear-hooking riffs, because the less catchy but slighty heavier tunes don’t quite cut it for me. That said, I can see Gut becoming very popular if they produced an album’s worth of tunes like these, simply because they’ve got catchy riffs, and probably a harder edge than most popular metal, if you can excuse me for thinking of Pantera, again.
Certainly worth a look, but room for improvement.
:twisted :twisted :twisted
½ out of 5Gut website 
