death metal

To describe Climax… as an impenetrable wall of guitars and blasting drums would not be excessive. This dense chunk of metal (encapsulating both death metal and the nastier side of black/war) is not to be approached lightly. A cathedral of fornication indeed.

I was very happy to see that Waking The Cadaver were back with a new album. I was under the impression that they had broken up. Authority Through Intimidation is a return to the brutality of old. That’s not to say stuff like Real Life Death isn’t brutal, but that super chunky, boxy slam on there is different from this record. Authority Through Intimidation (a very old title, those words were emblazoned on the back…

Silly yet fun little EP from death meets grind British metallers Foetal Juice. If you like puns in your metal, you’ll love this slice of insanity. Really good production too.

As much as I love Legion I find the production so dense and impenetrable I can’t help but prefer both the self-titled and Once Upon The Cross to it. Legion is arguably more brutal, but there is more nuance here, and I think the record works better for it. The band are firing on all cylinders here. Thick and chunky with a dry, unforgiving production. Not as viscerally decimating as Legion, but still an infinitely…

What a dingy composition! I was expecting early black metal but instead got something a bit more, idk, Possessed? Is that a correct comparison? I’m not sure. That’s what listening to random shit at 2am will do to you! I guess this thing predates most black metal anyway so I should have realised. Visio Dei Beatifica has that early tape demo feel about it which is just beautiful. Oh, and I will say, the drummer…

Fathomless death metal with a doom influence, all the way from Brazil. Sporting one of the coolest cover artwork pieces of the last few years, Fossilization channel both Disembowelment and Morbid Angel at the same time, but with the aesthetic of Carcass (or the nastier end of the metal stick – just look at that logo!). A promising start and a tidy EP.

Bizarre, almost progressive piece of death metal with jagged, rough edges. When I say “almost” progressive, I mean that Coffin Dust are still chunky and muddy as fuck, living up to their name for sure. But there’s a spark running through this that separates it from most death metal, which starts in the artwork and permeates the whole recording.

Macabre have a strange and twisted genius to them. On the surface, it seems like silly, childish takes on the disgusting and horrifying works of serial killers, much like Pungent Stench and their comedic view of sex and violence. However, listen just a little closer, and you can appreciate the true genius of Macabre. True – if you don’t like grindcore or death metal you’re fucked out of luck before you start, but this stuff…

Festerdecay’s demo was amazing old school gore, so I was pretty stoked to get around to listening to this split, which has more of that gooey sickness. Blasting away with a better production job, it’s still easy to get lost in the primordial soup that is Festerdecay’s riffing. What a glorious, dusty mess! Really great stuff. Crash Syndrom I’ve come across before (one of their EPs, I think), and are noticeably sharper and more dynamic…

Dirty, drab, rehearsal room feel hybrid of death metal and grindcore, with an amateurish edge that actually lends a lot of fun to proceedings. Despite the production quality, everything is audible here, but the drums do get drowned out now and then by the guitar. I don’t think Organ Grinder (at least, this particular French band with the name Organ Grinder – its a popular name it seems) went on to do all that much,…

Arguably the definitive Impetigo record? It’s hard to say. I’ve struggled to get into Impetigo in the past but with Horror Of The Zombies, that all changed. This has to be one of my favourite sounds in all of metal, punk and grind. It’s just so dirty, grimy and dusty. I just want a million cassettes of this thing, so you can bury them with me once I die. Impetigo perhaps need no introduction, but…

Trust Sikfuk to further devolve an already disgusting death metal reference into something even more puerile and gross. Do not be put off by the childish album title however, as Sikfuk do not fuck (or is that fuk?) around. It may take you a short while to adjust to the hollowness of the production, but once that little bit of trouble is aside, the sheer brilliance of this technical yet messy brutal death metal album…

A random suggestion (cheers Ifan!) was one I couldn’t turn down once I’d checked out that cover art. Some solid death metal is afoot, played in the “new” old school style, but with the clarity of a modern production. There’s a ton of this stuff around at the moment and its becoming increasingly difficult to stand out in the bog. Thankfully however Sarcoughagus do just that, with a tidy delivery of disgusting death, released (of…

Mashing slam and death metal with the boisterousness of the UK hardcore scene, AOAA exploded onto the underground circuit with this EP. I remember being a little pissed off at all the core and emo kids all of a sudden being into heavy shit (I was a battle-jacket wearing dickhead back then), but I was also low-key super into the slams, bro. Especially after seeing these guys live. Some of the lyrics have aged like…

Updated June 2024: In September 2022, I wrote the following about Realm Of Chaos: “I’ve never been the biggest fan of Bolt Thrower. I think that’s entirely because I never really bought into the hype, more than out of any dislike for what I’ve heard. My knowledge of this band however, begins and ends with this album. I’ve never heard any others. That may change however, as I’ve spun this a few times recently and…

I think I prefer the songs on the earlier classic releases but this thing sounds absolutely enormous. Mortician’s intense fuzz hits you in the face like 10,000 dirty hypodermic needles. The production is huge, allowing those buzzsaw riffs to fully be appreciated. What more can I say? It’s Mortician. I bought a Darkest Day Of Horror shirt back in 2006/2007 and I still have and wear it to this day. LOL.

Where do I begin with Tomb Of The Mutilated? I mean, just look at that art work! Just when you thought music couldn’t get heavier, couldn’t get more brutal, couldn’t get more disgusting, the 90s brought the wave of death metal full on and with it came Cannibal Corpse. This is a beast of an album.

I got into Gorguts through the more technical explosions of Obscura, so it was great fun to go back and unearth loved classics like this one, which are more in the traditional vein of death metal. Personally, I can’t think of anything more that I could want from old school death metal. Everything about this is just amazing, from the art to the production, the instrumentation and the vocals (which are a bit in the…

It’s time! I recently did a video review of my cassette of this which you can see at this link. Undeath keep their momentum up with their second record. The production is slightly different, but the riffs are chonky as fuck and the band are clearly on a roll so hey, let’s let them keep rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ (I’m sorry). “Necrobionics” is probably my favourite song, if I’m honest. I love the Doom video that…

For all the farmyard variety in death metal and grindcore vocals from around the globe and across modern history (lol), few are as animalistic and primal and disgusting as John Tardy. Your man here sounds like Taz on bath salts with one leg stuck in a bear trap. The art is a bit pants, but it is a classic after all so that can be forgiven (no shade at the artist, I’m just not sure…

I loved Sikfuk when I was a teenager. It’s death metal, but silly as fuck and also technical as shit! What a duality! Much in the same vein here does the carnage continue, but with a whole slew of additional sounds added to the one man’s already chock-full barnyard of vocal styles. There are now punk rock / powerviolence shouts and grunts to go alongside the usual gurgles and gargles. There is also a catchiness…

This is a lengthy split from 20 years ago (damn, son) (23 years for the original cassette before this CD version). If you know what Ahumado Granujo are about then this will not disappoint. There are less techno passages and more groovy finger-pointy goregrind, but hey, I’m not complaining about that. Production is good as always, and a few Gut covers towards the end (and a cover of Impetigo’s “Boneyard” but much faster!) are the…

Vulnus play intense, well-produced death metal. Despite this, there is a quality remaining of the feel of an underground demo, but the band’s overall tightness and professional sound does wonders for their crisp, precise carnage. As I listened to the split for ISOYF, discovering Vulnus was a pleasant surprise. ISOYF have thusfar failed to ever disappoint me. One could say that the band are not very adventurous with their sound, whilst another could then counteract…

Oh fuck, this is great. I’ve always avoided later Morbid Angel because I wrongly assumed it would be total rubbish. I had this in mp3 format when I was a teenager and it had all the “lavas” with it (like a bonus disc of guitar solos or something), and that along with the multiple ambient/intermission tracks here really distracted me away from the meat of the project. Thankfully, all these years later I decided to…

Totes brutes death metal is the order of the day, with a chunky digital production holding everything in a surprising state of clarity. The drums pierce the mix brilliantly, whilst the riffs are fully distuishable underneath the vocals, despite their technical complexity. All in all, sounds good, and doesn’t fuck around on the savagery scale.

Oh boy. So. I’d never actually listened to this all the way through before. Sure, we all know those tracks that people hate so much, and I saw the band live during this tour cycle and witnessed a lot of the death metal songs here sounding pretty impressive, I won’t lie. How do I even tackle this? This record is considered one of the most universally reviled metal albums of all time. Playing it through…

Nile’s debut album (not counting the demo, even though that feels long enough to be an album) is a blocky and solid affair that introduces the world to the band’s unique take on combining ancient Egypt with death metal. This is far from the polish of Annihilation Of The Wicked or In Their Darkened Shrines, but its great to see where the band’s musical journey truly started to begin and flourish. At a first listen,…

It’s really cool to look back at the beginnings of this band, who are now one of the biggest names in modern death metal. This cavernous debut is probably the most “different” sounding to all their other stuff, where they found their true style and their feet. That isn’t to say this demo is shaky, far from it in fact, its just the style of death metal on display is a little different, and the…

Cannibal Corpse’s second record with Corpsegrinder on vocals certainly hits home a bit harder for me than Vile did. Not to shit on Vile at all, but I just prefer this one. The album art features a woman who has perhaps the longest torso in the entire world, and whilst its not one of the best pieces Vince Locke has ever done, it fits the sound here perfectly. Opening track “I Will Kill You” is…

This has been my jam recently. To say that I have overlooked Morbid Angel would be a lie, but I’ve definitely been a dismisser of their “later” discography, starting with Domination. More fool me, however, as this has probably become my favourite Morbid Angel record (for the time being, at least). Domination marks Erik Rutan’s addition to the band (the producer legend, also of Hate Eternal and currently the recent incarnation of Cannibal Corpse). Domination…

John Tardy has to have one of the most distinctive death metal vocal sounds. He reminds me of the gnolls from the Forgotten Realms computer RPG Baldur’s Gate. Your man here literally sounds like a feral beast let loose to scream over these sludgy, lurching death metal tunes. Do I love this as much as Autopsy? Probably not, but it’s still a legendary lesson (lesion?) in doing slow death metal just right. I love the…

The Blood stuff here is great. Its raw, its nasty, and it really shows the styles that the band flirted with, bridging elements of death and grind with even black or war metal stylings. Love it. Unfortunately for me, I’ve heard the Impetigo side a thousand times because I got the Giallo / Antefatto complication CD through a trade when I was a teenager and these songs are already on there. Plus, the version of…

Dense, brutal death metal is the order of the day. In the old school style of course, as I’m sure you can tell by the artwork. The resurgence of this kinda shit is still flowing freely from an unblocked sewer, and for now, I’m OK with that (no doubt saturation point will be reached at some point in the near future). Insurrection Or Submission isn’t a particularly long affair, nor, dare I say, is it…

Vile is the first Cannibal Corpse record without Chris Barnes on vocals. Fortunately, the history of metal has been kind to us, and metalheads will surely know that this means that Vile is the first record with the now-legendary George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. This tidbit aside, it is unfortunately difficult not to compare this to what came before, especially considering Barnes left the band on such a fucking high, with the final record being The Bleeding….

2 sick tracks from early muddy Brujeria? What more could you possibly want? I love this band’s unique mix of hardcore, grindcore and death metal, all with their unique spin and immediately recognisable vocal. Production is a bit primitive here, but that’s absolutely fine by me.

Is there any type of death metal that is as bland and as boring and disinteresting as this? The answer is no. Fuck, these guys suck. Fuck them and their fucking bullshit music. Just gonna stop this here before I go off on one, but I listened to it so its on the site, thems the rules. Lowest common denominator trash, weak even for Sevared Records (and they’ve released some absolute shite over the years).

Covenant sees another slight shift in the Morbid Angel sound. The blistering death metal is of course still here, but the sound is warmer and the subject matter is more on-the-nose in regards to the occult. I mean, just look at that album sleeve! Altars… was echoic and cavernous, Blessed… was dry and brutal, Covenant seems like a tidy mix of both of these things actually, with some slower, sludgier elements thrown in for good…

The Bleeding is the final Cannibal Corpse record with the uhh… legendary (I guess that word is still applicable despite everything lol) Chris Barnes. When I was a young’un, making my way through the brutal mires of Cannibal’s discography, I would often give up around The Bleeding, never making into the Corpsegrinder territory. I don’t really know why this was the case, because The Bleeding is just as good, if not better, than the albums…

You’d think the market was already saturated when it comes to ancient Egyptian themed death metal? However this interestingly named project show us that there is room for more than one leviathan obsessed with said subject matter. Ruins Of Gubla is a dusty, down-tuned tape demo style approach to gloriously muddy death doom. The riffs are absolutely huge and are of course the centrepiece of this 4 track work. Imagine if Disembowelment and Nile had…

I love this shit. I can’t believe I’ve not already written about it. Some things just slip through the cracks I guess. Anyways. This predates the 2nd wave of black metal, but is considered a classic and a grounding for the bestial / war metal movements. I guess as it predates the 2nd wave, the influences these guys were taking in surely must have been a mix of death metal and shit like Venom. There’s…

Do I really need to explain what’s going on with an album title and sleeve art like this? For a band with such a terrible name, Funeral Rape have a fantastic logo. A Chainsaw To The Cunt wins no awards for originality but you can’t deny the band are not wearing their colours honestly here. Brutal death metal with gore/porn grind tinges is what the doctor ordered. You’ll either love it or hate it.

You can always count on Waco Jesus to produce solid slabs of brutal, bludgeoning death metal. Mayhem Doctrine also probably has the best attempt at the sado-sexual artwork the band always strives to attain; there is always some sort of nude woman on their record sleeves and this picture works quite well. It’s understated, unlike some of the others. Seriously though, whilst maybe they will not win any awards for originality, they make up for…

Well this one was a random time investment, purely off the name of the band and the record, and off the cover art. I’m still not quite sure how to classify this fucker, which is a good thing. There’s a ton of different vibes going on here, but the production manages to wrangle it all together; the bands intricate and experimental style is pinned down and grounded by the engineering on this. Truly, a bizarre…

Blood Incantation have won the hearts and minds (lol) of death metal fans the world over and it really is easy to see why. Their space and sci-fi vibes may be more akin to thrashers Voïvod or Vektor, but there is no loss of brutality here on Hidden History Of The Human Race. The songs are intricately crafted and very well produced (but not over-polished!), with a stage that gives these monsters room to breath….

I see a lot of Internet people moaning that the production on this is shit. Its too dry and too sterile, they say. Motherfuckers, are we gonna pretend the whole Morrisound death metal saturation thingy never happened? Shiiiiiit. On the scale of dryness from a martini to the Sahara desert, Blessed Are The Sick is lodged firmly on the tastier, lip-smacking beverage end of dry. So yes, the production is sterile. But the riffs are…

Razor sharp brutal death from Swansea, innit bruv, featuring – I believe – an ex member of Sodomized Cadaver. Sounds absolutely huge as well, with some session drums from the fella from Ingested (tidy stuff). The production is balanced and the metal is brutal. I’m on board with this, silly name and all.

Is it death metal or is it doom metal? Who cares? Immediately from the speakers comes one of the sickest and dirgiest tones in metal history, with a phenomenal analogue production job to capture it. Sparse flurries of synthesizers punctuate the heavy, yet without becoming hammy or overpowering. Why have I never heard Amorphis before? Add in the absolute banger that is the cover art and you’ve got yourself an incredible all-rounder.

I checked this out because it kept cropping up online and hey, the logo looks like Impetigo so it must rock, right? Granted, Ominous Seep Of Putridity is not as boggy or disgusting as its art and name promises you, but it’s still a very tasty slab of metallic goodness. It’s well-produced, which is always a nice surprise in these kinda circles, and is overall a really solid metal album. Good shit. I’ll keep my…

Sometimes, album covers are so bad that they become good. This little ditty is one of them. Just look at that thing. Jeez. Anyways, don’t be fooled by the crummy cover painting, Baphomet’s The Dead Shall Inherit is a solid effort in early 90s dry’n’sludgy death metal dirgery (yeah I know, that’s not a word). The production is crisp like a freshly charred corpse, yet with the tunings hanging out down low where the corpses…

Slam is inherently a ridiculous genre, and the brutally mental Crepitation are a perfect example of how to do the sound justice. The band bring their own unique spin to a genre that is immediately formulaic; insane, farmyard vocals front up jazzy guitar and bass, and of course, dustbin drums. Plus how amazing is that album title? Full points from me!

Well isn’t this just disgusting? An early incarnation of Don Decker’s Anal Blast (which may or may not feature members of Slipknot depending on which way the wind blows or which forum you read), Puss Blood Pentagram is a beginning of a running theme for the band. Its also super fucking sick death metal, like, some of the best of the mid 90s as far as all that brutal shit goes. I urge you to…

Ah yes the uhhh, classic entry from Morbid Angel. Honestly, I’m surprised I hadn’t covered this one yet, as I had the picture disc version for a very long time (pretty sure I sold it however). Anyway, where do I begin with this one? If you’re reading my site then I’m probably already preaching to the converted, but if not, then this is one of the essential death metal albums; one that defined a genre…

Before Fear Factory decided to rip off Godflesh for a living, they instead ripped off Napalm Death for a living. I mayyyy just a tad be acting a little dramatic for effect but seriously, this band owes a large part of their career to Justin Broadrick. Concrete is Fear Factory’s unreleased original debut, which was shitcanned in lieu of Soul Of A New Machine. Concrete finally saw the light of day in the early 2000s….

World Full Of Remains is Dead Infection’s debut album (demo?). I was after this for years but the tape is really hard to find, so I ended up with a LP repress that I bought in OEF 2013. The LP format makes the art a thousand times sicker, but it does nothing to alleviate the horrendous whoosing / phasing sound that exists across the recording. Not sure if this is a tape dubbing issue, or…

Choronzon was the album that got me into Akercocke, and was a fairly random buy off the strength of the “Leviathan” single (which had about half of the actual song cut out of it!). The single edit did not prepare me for the intense, hyper-speed death metal that was on show. In fact, I don’t think anything could have prepared me. If you take a step back, what an attack on the senses this is!…

I’ve had this CDr knocking about for, I’d say, 14 years or so. I used to be in heavy contact with Rob from Malignant Germ Infestation back in the MySpace days, and this must have come from him some shape or form. I shared the stage with these guys (Pain Penitentiary) and also MGI (in a solo incarnation) whilst touring with the Judas Cradle back in… I wanna say, 2016. Anyways, looking back aside, nothing…

Napalm Death have a fair amount of live releases. Bootlegged In Japan, either is legendary, or is just hawked to death by Earache, because its been one that consistently pops up. However, its a bit of a plod through mid-career stuff, which isn’t super exciting to me in its studio form either, so this is a completionist listen and nothing more, for me at least.

Brutal, 90s death metal with a turbid yet clarified production. Honestly, it doesn’t stand out from the bunch but the recording is sound enough. My favourite is the bass player, who clanks away ‘neath the disgusting explosion of sound.

Ah good ol’ reliable Thanatos, just the ticket when you need some no-nonsense death metal that won’t bore you to tears, yet in all honestly, doesn’t push things too far either. Angelic Encounters is a well made record, and is nothing short of a pleasure to listen to.

You gotta fuckin’ love Nunslaughter. Is there a purer form of metal than this? It strikes me as something Fenriz from Darkthrone would be proud of. Think blackened thrash but in the grimy, crusty underground vein rather rather the polished HM-2 big sound vein. Murky sounds, murky vibes, encompassed perfectly by that art. Top stuff.

Ever wondered what Mortician would sound like with a real drummer? Like pure shit, it seems! LOL – I’m joking. It’s just you get so used to the duo’s enormous and all-encompassing studio sound, that for me, the initial rough rehearsal room feel of this recording threw me for a loop. Once you’ve adjusted, it’s an absolute treat and the guys really pan out the 44 minutes with a veritable bevy of Mortician classics. Mad…

Before pressing play I am already intrigued by that artwork. How spooky is that shit? It isn’t a million miles away from what Uberkvlt (Justin Bartlett) does with his stuff, although I suspect that this may be before his time, as it were. Cadaver Symposium’s demo is a dry affair of grinding guitars (think early Carcass), heaving drums and a set of perplexing vocal performances, from your usual death growls through to your more unusual…

Dirging death metal is the order of the day, with that “evil” vibe that you get with a lot of 90s stuff. Its not as slow and sludgy as say, Autopsy, nor is it as gothic as say, Gorment or even Altars… era Morbid Angel, but it travels a way down both of these kinds of paths nonetheless. The cover art is pretty cool too, but as a whole, I’m not that big of a…

Carcass worship out the ass! Dark, mirky riffs and clandestine production cloaked in deep vokills and gory subject matter. Its like Symphonies Of Sickness had never been made, eh? The stones on these bands to mimic it so! All in all, a great listen, but you won’t find anything original here.

Everyone knows Seven Churches, right? (Well, every death metal head, at least). But, Possessed’s continued output seems to fall off into obscurity, for the most part. I know they have had success with more recent albums, but big up to Ken’s Death Metal Crypt for sharing this 1991 demo, of which I knew absolutely nothing about. It’s only 7 minutes long and 2 tracks in length, and whilst its not oceans apart from the Seven…

There is nothing more human than Death, right? To live is to die, or so I’ve been told. There’s a sadness (moreso than usual) to Chuck’s death (his actual death, not the band Death) due to the subject matter he dealt with throughout his career. Puns aside, Chuck and company confronted death (not Death) head on, from its gruesome side earlier on, to the more philosophical or esoteric musings on later records. This man was…

This gives me similar vibes to the Agoraphobic Nosebleed split with Converge, in the way that something super heavy and chaotic goes up against something with more progressive punk elements. Napalm Death are, well, Napalm Death, and this is prime cut 90s era stuff, with dry production, busy riffs, and Barney’s trademark low growls. Coalesce on the other hand, are a bit more all over the shop, with dissonant guitar work, harsh vocals and a…

What a lovely and dank 7″. I’ve just got a record player again for the first time in 7 years (what!) so wouldn’t be adverse to getting a copy of this in the flesh. I was afraid for Spectral Voice’s long-form death doom in such a format but they sound great, and Blood Incantation were born to make metal for the vinyl format, it seems.

Recorded at Morrisound, not that you’d ever know due to the intense level of grime on this thing. But hey, that’s what we love about 90s death metal demos, right? I have the unique opportunity of having this 1991 demo be my introduction to Solstice, as I’ve not heard anything else by the group at all. It’s like its actually 1991 and I’ve picked up this tape through a trade or something. Anyway, this is…

Bleeeruuuhhhhhhjjjjjgghhh. This is my first experience with Master outside of the legendary self-titled album. Of course, this is much more polished and modern, but I am missing out decades of evolution here. Honestly, it’s pretty good death metal, but the prize is taken by Paul Speckmann’s vocal performances, which are outstanding. Hideous and outstanding! Haha! Think of a mix between John Tardy from Obituary and Dave Vincent from Morbid Angel.

Entrantment? Is that even a word? In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t. I’ve tried to fight off and have succumbed to the temptation to make a “Kyle From Entrantation Has A Moustache” joke. LOL. Either way, this kills. There’s some super intense, low as fuck riffing on this mother. Proper slow, proper low! It’s nice to go all the way back to the beginning and check out the origins of this legendary death metal…

Well, this was pretty boring, I won’t lie to you. I don’t take pleasure in shitting on bands, especially new ones, but all the bits are in the right places as it were, but there’s just no soul or magic to Eructed (I’ve never heard that word before either, every day is a learning experience!). Very middle of the road and not very challenging. A shame.

(Please excuse the extra-shoddy picture of today’s post – I don’t actually own a physical copy of this and it was a nightmare getting a tidy shot of it) Oh boy! Somebody had been listening to Carcass a lot, eh? Despite the gore vibes however, this is a true death metal affair, rather than anything more goregrind related. The aesthetics may suggest otherwise, and you even have a meat grinder bass guitar on the go….

There’s something endearing about the cartoonish horror which adorns the average Gruesome album. It really pops out and represents Gruesome’s sound perfectly. Savage Land is I think the first full length record I’ve heard in entirety from these guys, and it’s a corker. Bright, old school death metal with a little thrashing influence too. Banging.

An intense, brutal and unforgiving slab of grinding death metal. Everything about this is huge, from the production, to the riffs, to the overwhelming feeling you get playing this at full volume. This has been hyped quite a bit since its release and you can really see why. Expect a dense barrage of total sonic annihilation. If that’s your thing, get stuck in.

Super brutal, sick, guttural, you name the word, it’s probably applicable. If I can be so bold I will say that it all gets a bit much after a while, but I think more than anything that can be attributed to the incredibly dry and over-compressed production. Everything sounds really artificial and after several songs it really brings about some serious listening fatigue. If you are not a wimp like I apparently am, and you…

Never has “live in your living room” seemed so very fucking real. After adjusting to the initial dissapointment that the audio is overdubbed and not raw VHS death metal, one can settle in and enjoy this classic three-piece Undeath performance from the good old days, when only the hypest of death metal heads were bumping gums about this band. Now, rightly so, they are much, much more popular. Get in at the ground level, and…

Classic, early demo from the Czech Republic death metal legends. All the hallmarks of a solid demo are here, and it’s actually quite exciting to explore this band’s primitive beginnings, after hearing later records and seeing them live twice. Good stuff!

This is one of the bands that I ended up downloading off of KazaA or Limewire back in the day. I was presumably looking for Anal Cunt stuff if typing “anal” into a music search (or perhaps I didn’t clear the search box from before after looking for something else entirely haha). I had one song, and I think it had a Jim Carey sample on it. I’d read as 12 or 13 year old,…

Think disgusting, boggy riffs, think snare drums tighter than human skin stretched out as lampshades. Think farmyard vocals, which are a bit unusual in this boggy area of death metal, but are kinda Sanguisugabogg’s thang, as it were. Expanding on the sickness laid down on the Pornographic Seizures EP, the ‘Bogg treat us to a dose of sickness in full length format. Its a bit samey, I won’t lie, and it doesn’t really break any…

I’ve reviewed some sick shit on this site over the last ten years and I can’t help it but when I look at the art for Butchered At Birth I just cringe out. There’s something about death metal paintings that are so overdone anyway (don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of good ones) that when it stoops to mangling up kids and babies to be offensive I’m immediately zoning out. It’s like, on that…

Exploitative Practices was the record that exposed me (oo er) to the dark and disgusting world of Fluids. The striking nature of the clearly legible logo, mixed with the Carcass-esque record sleeve sold me on a listen, and the Mortician worship pushed to 11 sealed the deal, and I was at that moment at one with the hype. This is some seriously brutal shit. If drum machines are your bag, or if you like your…

I love the art on this. The pencilled and photocopied (or even maybe pen and ink) scrawlings are done in such a way that remind me of early goregrind records by bands such as Regurgitate and the likes. Innards Decay however, are from Japan, and played a guttural, brutal approach to death metal. Much of what can be heard here can be found interpreted into the core of what the current wave of sick death…

This has gotta be some of the murkiest shit ever, in the best way possible of course. Undergang play slow, sludgy death metal, somewhere between Mortician and Autopsy, but coursing in its veins is the new blood and disgusting sewery goodness of the current crop of new death metal bands. Of course, Undergang actually predate a lot of these new sewer dwellers, but the energy and vibe is the same. Think wet, loose and analogue…

Was given a download link to this stormer of an album when I got some cassettes from Dissicated Productions. Taphos has a mankin’ logo, but the tunes are a bit more polished than the image. Well-rounded, death-inspired metal is the order of the day. There’s a small amount of pomp, but this is curtailed by a sprawling undercurrent of darkness to the writing and to the music itself. If you like your death metal a…

I’ve had this split knocking about on the to-do list for a while. Initially, for some reason, I thought Blood Incantation were on it, possibly because of the spacey artwork, but I digress. Side A: Cryptic Shift kick things off with probably the most polished song of the four on display here. Progressive, impossibly technical death metal is the order of the day and the sound is crisp to convey such goings on. Replicant are…

Did anyone say Carcass worship? Mmhmmm that’s some tasty gore! Boasting a far cleaner and well produced sound than most medical grinders, Medical Etymology have more in common with The County Medical Examiners than they do with say, Pharmacist or Pathologist. On The Vitruvian Dissection, a warm, clean and sanitised sound is present as the practitioners allow us into their theatre for half hour or so.

What can I say about this? Its an absolute classic. Merging the stinking themes, sounds and lyrics of what was explored on Scream Bloody Gore into a more coherent package, Leprosy isn’t as blunt-force as its predecessor, but is still an essential death metal album. Too good for me to describe!

Crap name, crap artwork, crap vocals, but my god what an album otherwise hahaha – Lividity have been a bit hit and miss for me over the years (but slayed it live to be fair), and the weirdly dry production on Clitoral Decay works wonders for the drums and even for the riffs, but plays havoc with the vocals, which sound unnaturally loud in the mix. The “shouted” vocals in particular, rather than the gurgles/growls,…

Cold, echoic and dense death doom is the order of the day, with an intense gothic edge. Not gothic as in, say, My Dying Bride, but more so than your average doomy death metal act. Good stuff here from Spectral Voice, even if slightly outside of my usual enjoyment realm, as it were.

You can always count on Fluids to push the boundaries of what is acceptable. Not Dark Yet wheels out one of the most disturbing samples I’ve ever heard for its opening track, before collapsing headfirst into some intense downtuned death metal. Fluids are easily the Mortician of this generation, replacing horror movie samples with audible terror sourced from the real world. The instrumentation is sick as fuck, and there’s some super interesting flourishes in the…

Easily this has to be one of the most brutal things ever. Sure, there’s more offensive, more disgusting, probably even more technical stuff that has come since, but on None So Vile, Cryptopsy took a step up from what was happening in death metal at the time and really blew shit out of the water. Everything here is just damn crazy, yet the production is clear enough for you to make out every last brutal…

Lovely (if you can call it that) little EP from one of the most mental band names to come about recently. I’m not even gonna type it out, I’ll just fuck it up (and that my friends, is me being very, very lazy). Honestly, I don’t think I preferred this to the album they did recently, which just seemed way better and had a really good flow to it. That isn’t to say that Pornographic…

A Night Of Totes Broots Torture is probably the best example of the older lineup(s?) of BTK. It sounds like they have EZDrummer on the go, but asides from that, this is tight as absolute all shit. Sampling is used sparingly to set the tone, and the tracks themselves are dripping is bloodsoaked riffs and intense, disgusting vocals. Banging.

Asphyx are a weighty band. I’ve always appreciated their deathy doom approach, but after seeing them live in The Netherlands in (I think) early 2016 I really began to apprecaite their records more. Despite being self-titled, Asphyx was the band’s third (at least when canonically released) record.

Free Off Pain is a fairly polished affair which is a far cry from the Fleshless of old. Its a good record though, if a little too clear for my personal tastes (hey, there’s nothing inherently wrong with good production, folks!). I believe this was a split or something at one point, but digitally its tacked together with an earlier demo and released as a stand alone.

Gorgeously messy, In For The Kill is an LP’s worth of distilled chaos from the lovely folk at Inhume. I first heard these guys on the Slimewave series that Relapse put out over ten years ago (shit, am old), but this album doubles down on the carnage. How amazing is that artwork, too? I think it accurately conveys the sounds presented here, and while the production is a bit muddy, everything falls into place after…

Now that the intense hype around this thing has died down I feel like I can safely stick my head above the parapet without being called a hipster or a dinosaur or (sharp intake) a boomer. I’m clearly missing something because I just don’t understand what it is that sounds so good about this album. Permission to speak freely, but for me this is just variations on a theme from the usual output of latter…

One of the longest running stalwarts of the traditional goregrind sound, Spain’s Haemorrhage have been mostly consistent over the years. Its funny, tons of modern bands are now channelling this intense level of Carcass worship, but Haemorrhage have long ago made this sickness their own. Hospital Carnage, despite its cartoonish artwork, is a serious goregrind record, drawing from the school of bands like Exhumed and delivering a sound and production more on par with the…

I’ve always liked Exhumed, but going back I didn’t realise how much I loved this album. What a disgusting mess! Bringing the aural vibes of early Carcass (particularly with the vocals) and mixing it with elements of thrash and death metal, Exhumed’s Gore Metal is a standout release in an often dismissed subgenre (in the grand scheme of things, at least). As stinking as the album cover or your money back!