Was not for that horrendous bright yellow and red logo and the gelatine candy effect on the album title, the cover art would have been impressive. This style reminds me a lot of Miran Kim's work on Incantation, with that disturbed feel of nervous, murky brush strokes. Body pieces lay strewn on a table, with corpses hanging from the ceiling and floating in big glass containers. And a young blonde bitch is looking horrified at the carnage from behind a window. Cool. The colors are also indistinct and vibrant of sickness; this is a nice work for sure.
Musically, I have to admit I am not impressed much however, and I am already at the third consecutive listen as I write this. Life at Zero plays emotionless, technical Brutal Death in incessant uptempo, with a shitload of guitar harmonics, some slams and a double vocal style that alternates between the usual deep growl and the ordinary high scream. As it's often the case the higher screams are really useless and a bit annoying, I am always in for the deeper ones. The music is convulse and intricate with constant tempo changes and basically NO blastbeats at all. They throw in some solos to spice things up but even here they seem just to be studied for showing off some musicianship. The music sounds brutal at first but then it rapidly becomes monotonous since we have the sound that contracts perpetually without ever releasing the energy. The most annoying element here is however the drummer which constantly moves areound the drumkit hitting every possible cymbal and drum surface he can to make as much impression as possible. Even if fundamendally we're a bit on the style of Mortal Decay, the music doesn't sound an inch as tight. Completely ordinary, hypertechnical stuff with no pressure at all. I can't say this is completely bad becouse we still talk about a competent Death Metal band, but honestly this sounds as if it was all done as a homework instead than being released from the guts. New Hampshire is a small state but I hoped this band was going to benefit from the Canadian madness to combine aggression to the schozoid songwriting.

 

Tracks (9): 1 - Intro 2 - Mudbag Massacre 3 - Swiss Family Cannibalism 4 - Gash Gnasher 5 - Weapons Of Mass Defecation 6 - Guttus Adulterous 7 - Vile Piles 8 - Cuffed & Snuffed 9 - Hippie On A Stick