HOLY SHIT!! HOLY SHIT!! This is just the best Death Metal I have heard since Abscess' "Tormented"! A few years ago, in 2003 I received the promo from this amazing Japanese band, side project of the famous thrashers Transgressor No shit, I have been listening to those promo tracks for one straight month. And now that I hear the full length things seem to have gone even better. The band is totally Autopsy-influenced and don't give a fuck to show it. What can I say, though review from one whose favored band IS Autopsy. I have been critical on Mausoleum since it was really just a slightly unfit clone, but this band shows all the good things in the sick Death/Doom of our gods with top class, they have recaptured the magick in the late '90s sound (well, just have a look at the last three lines in their thanklist). The vocals are a furious roar, deep and liquid, maybe a bit less diversified than those of Chris Reifert but equally vulgar and masculine. Guitar riffs are pure gold, just like old Autopsy stripped of all the punkish Abscess that was growing into it before splitting out as a separate organism: maybe not much of the sick gargling filth, but definitely this has all the Darkness and density of the ones above. Luckily I got this one before "Damned and Mummified" or I would have barely withstood the release of that piece of crap. This is really the band I always wanted to put myself together in 1990, maybe I should relocate to Japan ah... what else can I say? I am fucking tormented hearing this masterpiece. Production is perfect, each instruments owns the right tonality and placement in the whole chorus.

Packaging is simple, no frills, with neat fonts, a 4 page booklet in tones of black and red, must have taken 3 minutes to make but it's much better than photoshop-butchered brutal death bands of today anyway. Maybe a little bit more of old school lineart would have ruled but what the fuck, you can't have only Phil Hampson works ehe. You can't see the full artwork on the Internet so I am linking it here. Accurate artwork even if the visage of the woman looks a bit "unripe". It's like having four walls, smelling urine and encrusted blood, closing in from all sides, and you have no fucking escape. Claustrophobic, depressive at times, totally sick. It is THE number one record you have to buy this year if you haven't got it yet.

 

Tracks (9): 1 - Carnal Mutilation 2 - Tortured Bleeding End 3 - Downed in Sewage 4 - Funeral Feast 5 - Suicide 6 - Deceased 7 - Morgue of Cannibalism 8 - Only Consumed by Dead 9 - Stillborn (AUTOPSY cover)