Autopsy – Mental Funeral (1991)

March 4, 2024

This has gotta be up there with the greatest death metal records of all time. I wouldn’t neccessarily call Autopsy, or even Mental Funeral in particular, “slept on”. But when people talk about the greats, early Cannibal Corpse, Death or Morbid Angel gets brought up in most common conversations. Where is the motherfucking love for Mental Funeral, I ask? This shit is truly in a league of its own. And whilst I don’t think Autopsy ever really topped this, I find the band in general don’t get the props that they deserve, compared to the others that I’ve just mentioned.

Anyways, on to the record at hand. The production is crispier than a freshly napalmed corpse. It is really a fucking mystery how everything can sound so disgusting yet so clear and distiguishable at the same time. What an interesting duality, and hats off to the producers here, fucking stellar effort. The Cutlers (and Coralles) on guitar really fucking pump out some fucking stellar death metal on this thing, but the highlight for me just simply has to be the drums / vocals combo from madman Chris Reifert. The drums are fucking just so good. So crystal clear, so fucking cool in providing the raw backbone for these songs yet also full of interesting fills and tom-heavy passages that just reaaalllly scratch the right itch, y’know? Throw in the fact that this guy is doing vocals on top of that and I’m doubly, triply impressed. I know it sounds mad but I can draw parallels between the drumming here and like what Fenriz was doing on the early Darkthrone demos like Goatlord etc. – of course, this shit came first.

One of the greatest metal records of all time. Absolutely fucking essential listening, IMHO.