Faithxtractor – Loathing and the Noose Review

By Maddog

Faithxtractor’s second biggest musical contribution was the comment section from their last album. With a Farmers Only joke, a thread about metalcore album names, and a story that must be read to be believed, the birdbrain community’s mockery of Faithxtractor’s name has left me giggling for two years. Of course, the band’s biggest contribution was 2023’s Contempt for a Failed Dimension itself. Perhaps my favorite frill-free death metal record in recent memory, Faithxtractor’s fourth full-length dealt in riffs and also riffs. Unlike the other wannabes that litter the old-school death metal revival scene, Faithxtractor stood out through thoughtful songwriting. The album’s doom-tinged riffs were punchy, and its cohesive flow has withstood two years of wear. Ohio’s underground farmers are back with another slab of death metal. As I started spinning Loathing and the Noose, I knew what to expect.

At least, I thought I did. While Contempt for a Failed Dimension reveled in riffy simplicity, Loathing and the Noose is much more adventurous. Faithxtractor’s signature remains, with extra chunky riffs that alternate between furious death metal and Asphyxiating death-doom. However, while Contempt turned everything up to eleven, Loathing shatters the knob altogether. The most intense sections veer into blackened death-thrash, landing in between Morbid Saint and Panzer Division Marduk (“Fever Dream Litanies”). Even early Suffocation rears its head in Faithxtractor’s most bludgeoning brutal riffwork (“Flooded Tombs”). Spastic flailing guitar solos complement this unhinged assault on the senses. However, Faithxtractor ventures in the opposite direction as well. Loathing’s soaring leads and its melodeath-inflected riffs make it feel more melodic than Contempt. Meanwhile, the album’s starkest change lies in its bluer shade of doom. Faithxtractor’s melodic death-doom passages recall Swallow the Sun, displaying a newfound emotive side rather than merely adding heft. While Loathing and the Noose is far from an avant-garde record, it marks a sea change for Faithxtractor.

Miraculously, Faithxtractor’s experiments pay off. Even the most unexpected pieces are bafflingly powerful. Despite my knee-jerk skepticism, the melodic death-doom escapades are as evocative as the genre’s best (“Cerecloth Vision Veil”). Conversely, Loathing and the Noose’s speediest blackened cuts hijack my brain using frantic melodies and Marduk riffs (“Ethos Moribund”). These varied elements fit together with uncanny grace. The mid-section of opener “Noose of Being” mutates from blackened riffs to melodeath to sadboi death-doom to knuckle-dragging Autopsy worship, with fluid transitions that make each long jump feel like a natural step. Similarly, “Caveats” shines through its dynamic back-and-forth between an elegiac key melody and an enormous doom riff. While Faithxtractor’s round-trip transitions are sometimes abrupt, like the funeral-doom-and-back of “Flooded Tombs,” these are rare exceptions. Indeed, because it’s so well-crafted, Loathing and the Noose is an immediate hit despite its evolution; even the doomy seven-minute closer flies by, lodging into my memory by my second listen. Over-experimentation can be a turn-off, but Faithxtractor makes it work by whole-assing their every move.

Of course, it helps that the caveman segments slay. Even on its more adventurous tracks, Loathing’s overpowering death metal riffs are grin-inducing (“Cerecloth Vision Veil”). I have a soft spot for guitar solos paired with a dominant rhythm guitar, and Faithxtractor delivers on this with reckless abandon (“The Loathing”). If anything, Loathing and the Noose’s explosive tendencies make it a more visceral and infectious listen than its predecessor. And because the album’s climactic fury is sprinkled across each track rather than being sequestered, its 37 minutes are consistently lovable. While Loathing’s loud in-your-face master blunts its teeth, it remains a delight to revisit.

This is not the death metal album I was looking for. I showed up expecting a single-minded half-hour curbstomp. While Loathing and the Noose retains these simple roots, it does so much more. With influences ranging from blackened thrash to weepy death-doom, Faithxtractor’s newest record marks a transformation that initially left me worried. But its gargantuan death metal riffs, its smooth songwriting, and its excellence across its genre romps won me over. Contempt for a Failed Dimension was not just one of the greatest albums of 2023; it shocked me, revitalizing a subgenre that rarely rises above a 3.0. Loathing and the Noose sounds worlds apart, but checks the same elusive box. Mastermind Ash Thomas continues to understand my taste better than I do, releasing fantastic records in styles that often let me down. Keep an open mind and give this a shot.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Redefining Darkness Records
Websites: faithxtractor.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Faithxtractor
Releases Worldwide: January 10th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AmericanMetal #Asphyx #Autopsy #BlackenedDeath #BlackenedDeathMetal #ContemptForAFailedDimension #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DeathDoomMetal #Faithxtractor #Jan25 #LoathingAndTheNoose #Marduk #MelodicDeathDoom #MorbidSaint #RedefiningDarkness #RedefiningDarknessRecords #Review #Reviews #Suffocation #SwallowTheSun

Gutless – High Impact Violence Review

By Saunders

In a banner year for death metal of especially brutal, dissonant and challenging varieties, as we close in on the end of another action-packed year for metal, it’s time to return to the simpler joys of the death metal genre. Enter rising Australian upstarts Gutless. Following their 2018 demo release, the quartet finally unleashes their debut LP, High Impact Violence. Gutless make it clear from the outset they are wired into the old school framework of ’90s-flavored death, pulling no punches. While indebted to the classic American death metal eras of the early to mid ’90s, Gutless feature their own twisted, muffled charms and modern interpretations to smash out an album of solid substance and plenty of ballsy attitude, neck-snapping riffs, and tidy chops. But as end-of-year burnout kicks in and list season begins to take shape, do these Melbourne lads have what it takes to make a significant splash in the death metal cesspool of 2024?

Not being familiar with the underground history and previous short-form releases by Gutless, I dug out their well-received Mass Extinction EP from 2018 in preparation for the High Impact Violence to follow. It was a particularly nasty, feral slab of old school goodness, hinting at their potential. High Impact Violence features a more refined, polished update of their earlier material, yet retains a nasty, no-frills underground edge, including nods to the classic Floridian scene, and early Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse and Dying Fetus. Straight off the bat, when dissecting the Gutless DNA threaded into their formula, their strong affiliation with ’90s death metal shines through. Rather than hone into one particular influence, Gutless sculpt their own robust sound, built upon blunt force aesthetics, favoring brutish, tautly wound assaults, thuggish riffs and curb stomping beatdowns.

Amidst the aggressive, take-no-prisoners songwriting, Gutless boast the riffs, bludgeoning, tightly executed musicianship, and upgraded retro flair with an endearing charm that is easy to like. So, while initially, the overall package seemed to blaze by without leaving much of a lasting impression, repeat listens have treated the album kindly. This becomes all the more palatable considering the lean twenty-six-minute runtime. “Bashed and Hemorrhaging” does what any lean, mean death metal album should do, feasting on fast, aggressive rhythms, rabid vocals, and sick, pit-ready groove sections. The belligerent, no-frills assault continues to batter senses and hammer skulls across the album’s efficient duration. Gutless leverage the rough and tumble riffs and chunky mid-paced surges with tasteful soloing and blastier explosions (“Scalpel Obsession”), deft thrash and slam-infused dynamic twists (“Galvanized”), and old school grind, pummel and melodic flair (“Carved into Existence”). Certain tracks, such as those named, stand out from the pack, but it’s all solid, if sometimes unremarkable fare.

High Impact Violence succeeds more often than it falls flat or fails to impose itself on the listener. Yet despite its strengths and solid qualities, the album is not without some issues. Each song offers cool moments; however, a handful of tracks fail to carve deeper impressions in the memory bank once the frenetic attack subsides. More song-by-song individuality and further development of their songwriting skills will hopefully yield stronger results next time around. Allan Stacey and Tom Caldwell skillfully wage war on their instruments, cherry-picking from their influential touchstones with an energetic mix of old school death riffs, clubbing grooves, and occasional melodic flourishes and nifty solos. Drummer Ollie Ballantyne bludgeons his kit with reckless abandon, employing a busy, aggressive, groovy style without relying heavily on excessive blasting or one-dimensional rhythms. Joe Steele isn’t left behind, his meaty low-end given moments to shine. Caldwell’s motor-mouthed, muffled growls are serviceably performed, though a little more variety and unhinged edge of the early vocal eruptions would have added a welcome layer of grimy menace.

Overall, Gutless exhibit a fine example of their long-gestating efforts in finally unleashing their debut LP to the underground masses. And although the final package does not quite deliver a knockout punch, High Impact Violence remains a polished debut and hopefully a springboard to greater things in store for the band’s future endeavors. Perhaps splicing the album’s accomplished riffcraft, refinement and addictive sense of groove, with the nastier, rawer aesthetics of their early work could produce a more potent platform for this beast to grow.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Dark Descent Records
Websites: gutlessmelbourne.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/gutlessmelbourne
Releases Worldwide: November 22nd, 2024

#2024 #30 #AustralianMetal #CannibalCorpse #DarkDescentRecords #DeathMetal #DyingFetus #Gutless #HighImpactViolence #OldSchoolDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #Suffocation

Defeated Sanity – Chronicles of Lunacy Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

The scattering guitar stabbings and inertia-rupturing kick runs of Defeated Sanity’s earlier exhausting oeuvre fell blurry in early critical discussion.1 And while the brutal death loving scene at large may have found less issue with what Psalms of the Moribund up to Passages into Deformity offered in terms None So Vile-indebted,2 frenzied groove, 2016’s Disposal of the Dead // Dharmata cemented with a two-pronged approach Defeated Sanity’s tonal heaviness and technical prowess. From humble roots as a father-son project between kit commander Lille Gruber and now departed jazz journeyman Wolfgang Teske, these German slam summoners have grown alongside post-Suffocation flagbearers like the shred-snappy Dying Fetus and hammer-wielding Devourment in a manner far more rhythmically studied. Growth as a concept, though, in this genre which pursues with relentless, murderous intent the swinging arms and whipping necks of its consumers, can present in forms contradictory to its primal base of mouth-frothing riff drags.

Yet, the chase towards the limits of extremity has defined both the trajectory of brutal death metal and Defeated Sanity. In turn, 2020’s career high mark The Sanguinary Impetus expanded upon Defeated Sanity’s frenetic, gutter-tuned madness and jazzy, warm, nimble-footed stimulations through the engineering expertise of extreme metal’s greatest ally, Colin Marston (Krallice, Gorguts),3 allowing the impact of Defeated Sanity’s free brutality to land with frightening precision. Organic and cutting, Gruber’s kit—already a known highlight in the Defeated Sanity brand—finds dynamic tones that separate gravity-rated snare rolls from rimshot murder calls, push synth toms that evoke a Peart/Reinart bouncing homage (Rush, Cynic, respectively, particularly on the outro to “Temporal Disintegration”)4, and spread cymbal accents that kiss the edges of the soundscape to dissipate the madness. Marston’s fuller control over Chronicles manages chaos while still showcasing the depth of play that Defeated Sanity possesses.

In reaction to the preceding overdosed-on-Watchtower expedition, Chronicles stomps with its steel-toes caked in Suffocation-by-jazz-graduates fervor, serving stank, slam, and snare-drills in equal and obnoxious measure (“The Odour of Sanctity,” “Extrinsically Enraged”). None of what Chronicles has festered in the Defeated Sanity think tank plays worlds different than previous work, but its leanness and excess in detail forces repeated, engaging listens. For the unbaptized, speed-adorned, hammering snare runs break open the brutal death flood gates and reinvigorate its half-time crawls with little concern for whether the listener will be able to hang along for the breakneck ride (“Amputationsdrang,” “Accelerating the Rot,” “A Patriarchy Perverse”). Oh, and those crawls, engorged and dripping with a primal passion, land often with all the calamitous force that Defeated Sanity promises.

But for all the rage and ragged riffcraft that Defeated Sanity splays about the festering crooks and scabbed-over crannies of Chronicles, their undeniable attachment to groove as an anchor remains vital to success. The guitar work across any Defeated Sanity album comes second in technicality to Gruber and longtime bassist Jacob Schmidt. But its ability to punctuate rumbling, fret-clanging pulses with a percussive treble accent (“Temporal Disintegration,” “Extrinsically Enraged”), or dance about Gruber’s best Bobby Jarzombek (Spastic Ink, Fates Warning) impressions (“Condemned to Vascular Famine”) and hellish blasts (“Amputationsdrag,” “Accelerating…”), gives Chronicles an amplified weight that it needs. Defeated Sanity’s continued mission to layer rhythm upon rhythm upon rhythm—including vocalist Josh Welshman’s poetically metered, putrid, and unintelligible spews—finds an important tether in this thoughtful technicality.

Brutal death metal at its most basic level expresses the aggression of death metal through lenses of increasing absurdity and Defeated Sanity’s continued refinement of their devious dialogues tethers with ease the listener to their every wile. Whether brief like the grinding intro of “Amputationsdrang” or extended like the techy spasm of the penultimate “Condemned to Vascular Famine,” each run on Chronicles of Lunacy comes loaded with more impressive moments than any listener could hope to remember in entirety. But the beauty in the snarling and crushing atmosphere that Defeated Sanity creates exists in its ability to switch from knuckle-scraping slam to finger-testing climb as if all were one from the beginning. Chronicles of Lunacy, as a honed interpretation of Defeated Sanity already proven métier, finds an easy spot in the upper tier of their storied catalog—and it doubles as a killer neck exercise.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist | Bandcamp
Websites: defeatedsanity.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/DefeatedSanity
Releases Worldwide: November 22nd, 2024

Maddog

Three decades in, Defeated Sanity remains just out of reach of convenient descriptors. They’re too proggy to be Cryptopsy, but far too brutal for Death; too slammy for Suffocation, but too riffy for Wormed; neither noodly enough for Origin nor grindy enough for Dying Fetus. A distinctive medley of familiar pieces, Defeated Sanity has always targeted maximum brutality, in both their caveman slam breaks and their superhuman technical flourishes. This has resulted in one of brutal death metal’s most unassailable discographies; even their most recent album The Sanguinary Impetus earned a 4.0 and a handful of list spots in 2020. Its follow-up Chronicles of Lunacy charts charted waters, but it’s a jolt of adrenaline nonetheless.

Defeated Sanity’s signatures swirl together on Chronicles of Lunacy. Despite picking up a new lead guitarist in Vaughn Stoffey (whose main cred appears to be an adjunct professorship in jazz guitar), the band’s guitarwork is as fearsome as ever. Chronicles’ most technical riffs maintain a strong sense of melody, even in their syncopated flailing. Brutal near-OSDM sections offer a respite, interspersed with bouts of slam. Defeated Sanity’s prog proclivities are tasteful but omnipresent, like the jazzy outro of “Temporal Distintegration” and the off-kilter rhythms of the opener “Amputationsdrang.” Indeed, while there are more differences than similarities, Defeated Sanity remains mandatory listening for fans of Human-era Death. Long-time bassist Jacob Schmidt holds it all together, with vivid bass lines that thump without farting.5 And as always, Lille Gruber’s drums marry the rhythmic prowess of Mike Smith (Suffocation) with the snare-heavy circus act of Flo Mounier (Cryptopsy). Every member of Defeated Sanity balances high-brow compositional wizardry with serf-friendly jams.

Even at its most unhinged, Chronicles of Lunacy is impossible to tune out. Defeated Sanity has cracked the code; the secret to musical success is to sound both interesting and thrilling. Parts of Chronicles lean one way or the other, like the mesmerizing drum patterns of “Condemned to Vascular Famine” and the shameless slam of “Accelerating the Rot.” But the album’s triumph is its ability to blur the line among its diverse strengths. Miraculously, one of its most memorable riffs is the opening of “Temporal Disintegration,” whose Wormed melody slays despite its indecipherable rhythm. Similarly, Defeated Sanity’s breakdowns use a strong sense of melody to escape slam’s typical idiocy (“Condemned to Vascular Famine”). A chunk of credit goes to Colin Marston’s production job. Marston’s talent is undisputed, but he outdoes himself with a lush guitar sound that honors both Defeated Sanity’s cutting riffs and their technical spectacles. Despite its twists and turns, Chronicles of Lunacy has lodged in my memory much more than I’d expected.

But if you blink, you might miss it. While Chronicles teeters on the edge of lunacy through much of its runtime, it sometimes steps over the edge. The album’s earlier cuts suffer the most, sometimes leaving me confused about how their chaotic pieces fit together (“The Odour of Sanctity”). More generally, when songs shapeshift so frequently, they can lose their sense of identity. For example, while “Extrinsically Enraged” blends Killing on Adrenaline and Pierced from Within riffs that each drag me in, its hectic mix of ideas makes the track less recognizable. Still, these are outliers in a record that otherwise showcases thoughtful writing. Gruber’s drum shenanigans superglue disparate sections together, as do the expertly executed fade-in melodies (“Condemned to Vascular Famine”). The closer “Heredity Violated” deserves special mention, with a climactic introduction, a skull-shattering main riff, and an ebb and flow that make it my favorite closer of 2024. Overall, Chronicles of Lunacy’s loose seams are just small holes in a tight-knit garment.

With bands like Wormed, Noxis, and Nile churning out stellar releases in 2024, brutal death metal has already given us more than we deserve. Defeated Sanity’s latest is just the cherry on top. Sanity’s Lunacy rewards patience, and its frenzied darting between technicality and brutality is a head-scratcher even after weeks of attention. But I’ll be damned if it isn’t one of 2024’s most endearing death metal releases.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

#2024 #40 #BrutalDeathMetal #ChroniclesOfLunacy #Cryptopsy #Death #DeathMetal #DefeatedSanity #Devourment #DyingFetus #GermanMetal #Nov24 #Origin #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SeasonOfMist #SpasticInk #Suffocation #TechnicalBrutalDeathMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #Watchtower #Wormed

Fulci – Duck Face Killings Review

By Steel Druhm

Italian brutal death metal/horror synthwave act Fulci are one of the weirder groups lurking in the extreme metal scene. With a deep, abiding love of Italian horror cinema and especially the work of Lucio Fulci, these denizens of splatterporn always strived to serve two masters. On the one hand, they set out to deliver grotesque old school death metal capable of caving in skulls and removing scalps. On the other, they fetishize the creepy vibe of the late 70s/early 80s Italian horror era and want to load everything down with dated synthscapes akin to Goblin. Blending these disparate styles has proven challenging for the band. Where the mix was quite effective on 2019s Tropical Sun, approximating the mood and tension of Fulci’s classic Zombie (Zombi 2 outside the U.S.), the half-death and half-synth split on 2021s Exhumed Information was odd and not entirely successful. Now we get Duck Face Killings, which is one of the worst titles ever with a concept based on the infamously grim Fulci film, The New York Ripper. That nasty piece of celluloid featured taunting phone calls from the titular ripper who spoke in a bizarre Donald Duck accent for unknown reasons. To nail the film’s dark mood, Fulci once again includes a treasure trove of soundbites and synthwave noodling alongside reliably pig-faced brutal death metal that dwells in the crawlspace between Suffocation and Barnes-ersa Cannibal Corpse. Are you ready to give a duck?

When Fulci put their best blood-drenched foot forward, they can make an impression. Opener “Vile Butchery” is such a moment, going all in on early Cannibal Corpse-style excess full of crushing grooves, sub-sub-basement wrenching, and chugs beefy enough to turn a vegan into a rabid cannibal. It’s military grade caveman death heavy enough to kill your neighbor’s sod installation, and it’s good fun. As it slowly fades out, you get cheeseball synth interlude “A Blade in the Dark” which feels like something Nightsatan left in the sun too long. This in turn shifts back into brutal death territory for the charming “Fucked With a Broken Bottle.” It’s decent but doesn’t stimulate the anger centers of my ape brain. The lurching from ugly to cheesy is the hallmark of Duck Face Killings. It tries to approximate the experience of fleeing a sadistic maniac through a sleazy 1980 version of Times Square, but it feels scattered and uneven due to the infusion of out-of-synch interludes.

The album’s weirdest moment arrives with “Knife” which opens with a rapper in the vein of Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) backed by heavy, sludgy riffs. Imagine “In the End” with an unexpected home invasion by an axe-wielding Corpsegrinder and you’ll get a sense of the overall weirdness. I give them credit for doing something new, but it doesn’t work for me at all. Luckily, the album goes on a lengthy run of straight-up death metal from there with “Slashereality” providing thrashing, pummeling horrors, and personal favorite “Rotten Apple” bringing the duckhammer down with slammy riffs and mouth-breathing, Suffocation-esque heaviness. The problem is that the meat n’ taters of the Fulci experience is about death metal, and only a few tracks offer good, brain-shaking examples of it. There are three or four solid nuggets here, but none rise much past good. There are also a few that feel generic and nondescript (“Fucked With a Broken Bottle,” “Human Scalp Condition”). When you add in the synthwavey, soundbitey vignettes, third-tier rap, and the odd instrumental closer featuring mournful saxophone wailing, it makes the 32 minutes of Duck Face Killings feel like a bizarre conversation piece rather than an album you’ll return to regularly.

Fiore Stravino does his gruesome best to vomit brutality in every color imaginable over the course of the album. His basic death croak is very effective, though I’m not a fan of the piggy, garbage disposal bits he lapses into. These end up more comedic than extreme and hurt the dark mood the album curates. His La-La-La moments during “Human Scalp Condition” elicit chuckles every time and derail an already underwhelming track. Domenico Diego and Ando Ferraiuolo manage some solid riffs and big grooves, and when they hit their stride you get respectable moments of weighty riffery. The occasional melodic flourishes are nice but underutilized. Sadly, a good portion of their repertoire revolves around basic chugs and grooves and these get tedious. Ultimately it’s the writing that lets Fulci down most, as the overall quality of the music isn’t consistently memorable.

Duck Face Killings is the kind of album you appreciate more for what it tries to do rather than what it actually accomplishes. I like Fulci and I like the concept, but the music itself isn’t good enough to make me come back again and again. I’ll savagely rip out the best parts for playlists and dump the bloody remains in the NYC harbor, just like the New York Ripper would. Snitches get stitches, duckface!

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Websites: 20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/duck-face-killings | facebook.com/fulciband
Releases Worldwide: August 9th, 2024

#25 #20BuckSpin #2024 #Aug24 #CannibalCorpse #DeathMetal #DuckFaceKillings #Fulci #ItalianMetal #Mortician #Review #Reviews #Suffocation

Cutterred Flesh – Love at First Bite Review

By Kenstrosity

Czech brutal tech hash-slinging slashers Cutterred Flesh ought to hold a seminar on pairing cheeky artwork with equally cheeky album names. Three years ago, the five-banger released the whimsically titled Sharing is Caring and paired it with imagery befitting its title and the brutality it contained. Today, Cutterred Flesh prepare their sixth assault, entitled Love at First Bite, and with it another gruesome but tongue-in-cheek slab of paint. Needless to say, just like before, this combo instantly makes this artwork one of my favorites of the year so far. The question remains, then, whether the album’s content can enamor me the same way as does its cover.

Cutterred Flesh chose not to fix what ain’t broken. Love at First Bite remains a brutal tech death record at its core, continuing right where Sharing is Caring left off. If you aren’t familiar with their work, Cutterred Flesh’s current sound starts with a strong Deeds of Flesh and Suffocation backbone, warped by the crushing bounce and swagger of Abysmal Torment. Using this concoction as a starting point, Cutterred Flesh routinely carve out a distinct approach time after time. In 2021, the Czech troupe accomplished this by using mournful melodies to create moments of unlikely beauty that belied their gory grit. Love at First Bite makes a lateral move from that space into environs more atmospheric, eerie, and oddly uplifting. Subtle and restrained use of bright (perhaps even major key in one spot) tremolos and airy atmospheric black metal lines trace fine streaks of drama and grandeur to songs which otherwise fit standard brutal death and tech molds (“Repeated Intersexual Misunderstanding,” “The Last Supper”). Armed with these gentle touches, Love at First Bite creates an intriguing brutal death experience that might grab a wider audience than your standard fare.

Even if I focus solely on the sections of Love at First Bite that fall solely under the typical brutal tech architecture, a fair portion of Cutterred Flesh’s material feels more engaging than the norm. Examples such as “Xenomorphic Annihilation—Earth Ravaged,” “Human Protein Concentrate,”1 and “Descent into Torment of Abyssal Whispers” do absolutely nothing new or novel. Nonetheless, they stand out as quality pieces in the medium thanks to extremely hooky riffs and mighty grooves. Late album cuts like “The Last Supper” succeed as well in part because Cutterred Flesh apply fresher techniques to the standard blueprint for slammy brutality, making its main themes extra memorable and impactful. That said, there’s still no ignoring the fact that these otherwise strong numbers lack enough novelty to elevate them as much as Cutterred Flesh certainly could have.

On the flipside, Love at First Bite’s more explorative tunes—such as the deceptively interesting “Repeated Intersexual Misunderstanding” and the rip-roaring triumph that is “Amanda”—make a strong case for the direction Cutterred Flesh ventured. By integrating atmospheric black metal twists and more uplifting melodies into their gruesome gruel, an unlikely synergy ascends. The spine-tingling final third of “Repeated Intersexual Misunderstanding” transforms what would otherwise be a bog standard brutal beatdown into a minor epiphany, its major harmonies striking a rare nerve that this genre never sets out to interact with in the first place. Meanwhile, “Amanda” draws from the cosmic well from which Mare Cognitum‘s epic majesty springs and reformulates it to fit a more violent, explosively energetic mission. Other tracks accomplish similar transmutations to a lesser extent, of course (see “Descent into Torment of Abyssal Whispers” and “The Last Supper”), but none are as successful as the aforementioned. Unfortunately, as Cutterred Flesh massage and flex newly acquired songwriting muscles, they tend to leave their brutal tech core somewhat atrophied in spots, weakening critical moments that required meteoric impact in order for this pairing of aesthetics to work best (“Code of Zuurith,” “Sarkam’s Wrath Unleashed”).

Consequently, Love at First Bite represents a record of several great moments amidst rock-solid material, but only a few wholly great songs. If listening with a non-critical eye, Cutterred Flesh’s latest offering possesses ample goodies to sate anyone’s bloodlust. I, however, want to see Cutterred Flesh push harder going forward. I believe they have something truly unique and unusual to offer the brutal tech-death scene, and at this point all I want is for this Czech cohort to really let me have it!

Rating: Good.
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: facebook.com/CutterredFlesh | cutterredfleshband.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: May 24th, 2024

#2024 #30 #AbysmalTorment #BrutalDeathMetal #CutterredFlesh #CzechMetal #DeathMetal #DeedsOfFlesh #LoveAtFirstBite #MareCognitum #May24 #Review #Reviews #Suffocation #TechnicalDeathMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords