Written by: Blackie Skulless
Since the band’s earliest demo at the crack of 2019, I’ve been following every Undeath output that gets tossed out at a close range due to the band’s immediate ear for outstanding writing in the death metal genre. 2020’s Lesions Of A Different Kind would take the structural brutality of the demos and bring them to a refreshing light. This quickly cemented the New York quintet as one of my favorites in modern death metal. There’s no sign of this discontinuing with the latest, entitled It’s Time…To Rise From The Grave. Fitting the imagery of the name and artwork, Undeath sees their second full-length as a step forward in technical tactic while strongly maintaining their ground in memorable riffing. Never is the muddy and unforgiving bottom lost with harsh and disgusting tones that draw the guitars as deep as the guttural vocals.
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Written by: Blackie Skulless
I first discovered Fetid Zombie through their Death Covenant EP in early 2020. While pretty impressive, channeling the strong Obituary and rotting vibes, I certainly didn’t foresee them jumping to this level of intensity (this is also going in with no knowledge about the earlier full-lengths). Enter Transmutations, an absolute beast of a record that swings in a completely different position. Not only is the songwriting longer and more advanced, it’s so much more cohesive than I would have pictured. Across the board, you have a friendly dose of hoarse and cavernous wailing (vocally and instrumentally), melodic traditional metal riffing, dissonant and intense lead passages, and a plethora of different vocal varieties. Almost never does a death metal record of this type pull off the traditional growls, roaring echoes, and even clean singing at times, like in the soft intro of “Dreamless Sleep Awaits.” But don’t mistake this for some generic melodeath accessible serving; it manages its accessibility with writing tactic that winds up being catchy. Lots of bells and whistles, synths, and effects are tossed in for wonderful measure. FRESH MEAT FRIDAY - January 28th, 2022, Feat. Rotborn, SARTORI, Mt. Echo, and Depleted Uranium1/28/2022 On (regrettably infrequent) Fridays, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s crumbling gates, stuffed to the brim with our sustenance. Today is the day we must offload all this week's new and noteworthy music, and so, in the process, we thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our choice picks from this veritable mass of fresh meat. This is what we’ll be listening to today at the Village HQ. We hope you join us in doing so! On the docket for today, January 28th, 2022: Rotborn, SARTORI, Mt. Echo, and Depleted Uranium
Written by: The Administrator
The first track on Abyssus' stellar Death Revival is entitled "Metal of Death," and if that alone doesn't tell you what to expect in the following 33 minutes, we should probably just pack it up and head home. No gimmick necessary: this is fun death metal that thrives in an environment where the genre's intrinsic over-the-top absurdity and bombastic flair is celebrated. It's an admirable dedication, and after digging myself out of a recent glut of gross death metal that reveled in putridity, some crisply high-octane fare serves as an excellent palate cleanser. Nothing here is drenched in gore or ensconced in the increasingly prevalent "cavernous" aesthetic. Rather, everything here is aggressive, and boisterous, and coated in a slick sheen of late 80's nostalgia. If you like that furious romping energy of Consuming Impulse-era Pestilence, or Beyond The Gates-era Possessed, or Cause of Death-era Obituary, or Spiritual Healing-era Death, you're most certainly in capable hands. Long live the ugly mutation of thrash into death. The golden age lives on. 
Written by: The Administrator
Maybe I'm alone in this opinion, but I find high quality death metal albums particularly difficult to review. The standard adjectives feel dead on arrival--"brutal" or "ripping" or "pulverizing" only get you so far with an audience who has heard it all before. Upping the ante in terms of gross-out description is similarly limited: there's only so many ways you can say "cranium-crushing" "intestine-splitting" or "cadaver-licking" before the hyperbole starts feeling stale and copy/pastable. You can only drop so many laundry lists of high-profile acts such as Morbid Angel, Revulsion, Incantation, Dying Fetus, Deicide, Suffocation, Hate Eternal, and motherfuckin' Cannibal Corpse before it starts to sound like comparison for the sake of comparison. Anyways. enough shop talk. Let's move on to today's high-quality death metal album in question. |
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