Written by Barlovv
> Eaten By Sharks – Eradication
> Tech Death
> Released August 26, 2022
> Bandcamp Link
Red in the morning. A sailors warning.
Blood. Blood. Blood on the tide.
At risk of assuming you and I are overly familiar with each other; there is every chance that, upon seeing the album art for Eradicated, you thought “Oh, yeah Barlovv is going to love this”. You were right, hypothetical best friend, I do love this.
Technical Death Metal act Eaten By Sharks hail from my homeland in – so called – Canada, so I felt a certain obligation to be the one who covers them. Speaking for all Canadians when I say that this album is approved and part of our educational system for the 2023 school year. Perhaps this should be a more serious review, but I mean… look at the cover art. It’s beautiful and absolutely batshit insane. I feel like a bit of irreverence and writing in the first person too much is warranted here.
“Shut the fuck up and tell us about the music already. THE RIFFS!”
Ok Ok, god.
While Eaten by Sharks isn’t breaking the technical death metal mould or redefining a genre, there are absolutely some strong chops on display. The vocals are consistent and brutal, the instrumentals are as fast and intense as you would want in an album like this. You’re getting what it says on the tin, and that’s genuinely not a bad thing. The album opens hard and doesn’t let up for the thirty-odd minutes you’re going to spend swimming with these sharks.
Does it make me like the band more to know that lead guitarist Chris Chaperon has two 1000 pound pigs? Yeah, it does. Please don’t eat them Chris. Not that I’m vegan, but more that now I’ve seen them and I love them, plus you’ve named them.
Also, just look at this fucking thing.
The Bottom Line
I worry sometimes that, when I talk about bands being a kind of a “popcorn movie” in musical form, that that might be seen as a slight. It absolutely is not. Eradication is an absolute blast and one that hits just as hard as you want it to, and is just as serious as you want an album from a band called Eaten By Sharks to be. I wholeheartedly recommend this beast and hope that you have fun listening to it. I did.