As Light Decays
Chaos in Order
Independent
After hitting the local gig circuit hard in 2019, local boys As Light Decays recently dropped their first single, Chaos in Order. If you immerse yourself in Perth’s thriving heavy music scene, you’ve no doubt caught the quartet live. Their shows are honest, heavy, no gimmicks metal. Vocalist Jamie Gaitskell is a confident and enthusiastic frontman who is more than capable of keeping the energy high. The remaining band members are solid musically, and their subtle interactions on stage suggest these lads are great mates and get a kick out of what they are doing. This is something that can’t be faked and makes for a thoroughly enjoyable show.
It’s always tricky for local bands to enter the studio and replicate what they do week in, week out in the back rooms of pubs. With their debut single, As Light Decays have given it a good crack. Chaos in Order relentlessly thumps through a familiar song structure, with believable passion from Gaitskell and driving rhythms from drummer Beau Unwin and bass player Googz. Brett Dunsire’s guitar tones are rattly and treble heavy in true thrash style, but have enough thick and juicy low-end to hit any modern metalhead right in the feels. Production-wise this is a very strong first release. There’s no sparkly bells and whistles, just well dialled-in guitar and bass tones, and drums that sit well in the mix. Gaitskell’s vocals are soaked in reverb, creating a real 90s thrash vibe that along with Dunsire’s simple but headbangingly catchy intro/verse riff, will have your hands firmly planted on your knees and your long hair windmilling wildly.
Lyrically, this is a strong effort from self-professed English language nerd Gaitskell. He paints a pissed off portrait of a world driven by greed and the casualties who suffer silently because of it. Cliché? Yes, but it’s delivered with such a raspy sneer that it’s easy to see that Gaitskell believes what he says, and those 90s thrash vibes just beg for a song that yells “Fuck you!” to The Man.
Chaos in Order isn’t a short song, clocking up almost six minutes. But there’s decent dynamics here, and the simple structure keeps listeners firmly strapped in and along for the ride. There’s even a heavy and groovy breakdown at the midway point. While this is a highlight when experiencing the song live, it cries out for a guitar solo instead when it’s pumping through the car stereo.
Despite that, this is a well put together and nicely packaged debut single. It’s not the most original sounding tune but it takes all the right influences from metal over the last 25 years and presents them successfully. 2020 looks like it’ll be another big year of relentless gigging for As Light Decays with plenty of shows already being promoted. Catch them as part of Metal United Down Under, alongside death metal big dogs Iniquitous Monolith and industrial metalheads All This Filth on April 4 at the Civic Hotel.
TONY WESTWOOD
