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Fatalist - The Depths of Inhumanity - 90%

1/17/2014

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This traditional death metal act was formed back in 2006. Their origin is in Ventura, California. For this album, they consisted of being a 4-piece act. Neil Burkdoll on vocals/guitar, Wes Caley (Exhumed, Uphill Battle, Stonehelm) also on vocals/guitar, Art Hayes on bass and Tyler Castro on drums. Sadly, Wes Caley and Tyler Castro both left the band in 2009, shortly after this album was released. Now they are a 5-piece band, but with this album, they still were strong and heavily Swedish death metal influenced. The album consisted of sounding like that mostly; that and among other death metal bands as well. 

This band plays strictly death metal. With heavy, B-tuned guitars, they are in some parts, wholly thick and consist of some melodic sounding riffs. All of the tracks are filled with semi-fast tempos, along with other songs with even sounding speeds. There really aren't any totally fast parts, but still they are aggressive. Just check out the songs "Frozen Epitaph" and "Morbid Derangement", as they are in summation a conglomeration of unique guitar riffs, played at varying speeds.

The melodic parts are totally apparent on many tracks, and other aggressive riffs played alongside their brutal vocal outputs. The drums rarely get to a hyper fast pace-they seem more subdued. That doesn't take away from the quality that this band created with this release. Death metal isn't played much better than what's concocted on here. The guitars are so chunky and heavy, but they don't drown out the more melodic/musical riff-writing. 

Some songs are played with less aggression, though the main guitars still remained heavy. There were slower tempos, which captured the essence of the unique writing capabilities of this band. The guitars were more groove laden rather than existing to that of outlandish and nonsensical blast beats. As I mentioned, there were some faster drum parts, but mostly the band focused on having slower tempos instead of reflecting that of an extreme death metal act.

There were some solos on this release, but they weren't too technical. They made the rhythms sound more augmented with enduring melodic temperaments. All of the tracks featured the band's main influences, which again sound like they are a Swedish death metal band. The fact that they originated in California is very surprising. 

The production sound/mixing by Neil Burkdoll was solid, with every track including the remastered demo versions. Each instrument was heard with quality engineering. This album captures 7 songs from their "Loss" demo, plus 4 new songs all remastered onto one CD. All of the tracks are clear sounding, even the earlier demo tracks. They all were well played out and mixed properly. As far as the lyrical contents, they reflect that of death and negativity. Fatalist does no cover songs on here.

In conclusion, if you want a Swedish influenced death metal release with grim and morbidly infested lyrical content, then "The Depths of Inhumanity" delivers. This album is wholly a strong portrayal of how death metal should be played-with aggression, uncompromising guitar overtures and a complete onslaught of riff-writing. The song titles and lyrical content reflect how death metal is at its' finest. More songs to capture online via their MySpace page are located here: http://www.myspace.com/fatalist666. Other tracks to hear with vigor are "Homicidal Epitaph" and "Impulse To Kill." Fatalist defies the odds with songs that deliver fine traditional death metal.
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Entrench - Inevitable Decay - 65%

1/17/2014

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This thrash metal outfit was formed in 2005 reigning from Sweden featuring Fredrik Pellbrink on vocals/guitar, Hannes Lindkvist also on guitars, Joel E. Sundin on bass and Joel Gustafsson on drums. I wasn't very impressed with this band because of it's lousy production and overall sound quality. The main guitars/leads are heard well, but the drums were very flat and the bass audible negligibly. It takes away from this thrash metal outfit's promising characteristics.

The vocals were quite annoying featuring screaming mostly and without too much vigor. The guitars overall produced quality thrash metal bringing about decent riff structures that vary ranging from tremolo picked bits with tempos pretty fast, but because of the production they sounded once again very muddled. There were bits of chords and well constructed leads. Overall, the guitars resemble early Slayer in some instances. But the vocals ruin the excellence of the axes.

Musically the band is up there in good ranks they just have to put in more money to pay for a better production sound. I enjoyed the guitars the most, but the bass was barely heard and the vocals once again destroyed the creative guitar riffs. If they had someone else besides Fredrik putting out his screaming voice and put in a higher quality vocalist, then this release would've received a better rating from me. The drums also were lacking due to the production weakness.

This album clocks in about 39 minutes in length featuring one instrumental song. The musicians have great promise if they can get themselves recorded better then the riffs would've been more enjoyable to listen to. When a band decides to put together a good solid debut, it's very likely since Entrench is new among the thrash metal world it's hard to make a production that sounds professionally done. Hopefully the band realizes this and puts out a production sound that is better than sounding like a garage recording.

This band has a load of potential as a quality thrash metal outfit if they have better mixing, better vocals, a bass and drum backing up solid guitar work. Musically, the riffs are pretty original sounding, which is a good thing. There really aren't many songs though that really stick to the brain because of the quality of the sound itself, as mentioned many times in this text. I'm cautious to say run right out and buy this album because it's one that needs to be examined more carefully.
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The Gardnerz - The System of Nature - 75%

1/17/2014

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These Swedish natives have been existence since 2008 and this is their first full-length death/doom metal release. The lineup here is as such: Niclas Ankarbranth on vocals, Wilhelm Lindh on guitars, Francisco Martin on bass, and Juan Pablo Donoso on drums. The main beef that I have with the release is the production quality, but this is the band's first full-length effort and I think that they did a good job in the songwriting department, though it took repeated listens to in order to get into the music. Some Opeth influence here on the guitars.

The music isn't blindingly fast, but there are some tracks that are pretty memorable. The tempos to the them are moderate and I'd consider the band to be more of a doom metal act than a death metal one. The leads are fantastic and Wilhelm can really shred. His writing on the guitars riff wise feature complex overtures with palm muted outputs mixing in some clean tone guitar with it. I think that the vocals ruin the guitar though because Niclas can't really sing too well. His vocals range from low burly segments mixed in with screaming outputs.

I really dug the music despite the vocals however. The band needs to get someone that can augment their melodic sound to better fit the music. Niclas just needs to have better vocal segments than anything else. The guitar riffs were interesting and moderately tempo based. There aren't any songs on here that were fast and furious. They were mostly slow paced and fit the doom metal genre more so than the death metal one. The vocals make the band into being a dual genre act.

The production was decent, though the snare drum sounded flat. That's the only negative really to say about the album in this department. The guitars featuring the clean tone, heavy distortion and bass were all mixed into this release pretty well. The vocals suited the music but I just couldn't get into Niclas's voice. It could be that it's because I'm not a huge fan of doom metal. It pretty much bores me. The guitar melodies make up for the boredom that I experienced listening to this album.

I wouldn't say to run right out and purchase this release ASAP. YouTube some of the songs first before you make any kind of conclusion as to whether or not you like the band. I think that they're decent like Moonspell just not as much quality as that band. The melodies were amazing though. Wilhelm really put forth rock solid guitar work both on the rhythms and leads. I think that because of his efforts it got me more into the band on a whole scale. If you want decent death/doom metal, this album does cut it.
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Corrosive Carcass - 85%

1/13/2014

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Well since this band is from Sweden, they're quite a bit like Dismember. But there's more of a reverb/echo sound to the album, especially the vocals. I'd say that the album is best heard like any other album which is with headphones. You don't get keyed into an album as much if you're just listening to it on your stereo. Nothing much new that any other death metal band has put together really with this band, but they do show some promise. What they should've done though is cut out the lead guitars totally because they just are mediocre. It kills me when a promising band puts together good rhythms then the leads are below par.

Some things that were out of the ordinary band was that they included some clean tone guitar work. But the music in itself ranged from extremely brutal and heavy with vocals that were simply aggressive and riffs really fast. But tempo changes were all over the place. I suppose that's good in a way so that you don't get sick of listening to something that's totally slow the whole way through the album or an album that's filled with blast beating galore. One exception I must say about the constant blast beat that was released some years ago was Krisiun's "Conquerors of Armageddon". But with Corrosive Carcass, there are some fast tempos for a lot of the album.

The guitar riffs are really hard to make too much out on my stereo that's why I chose to listen to it on my laptop just to be able to hear everything going on. Now the music is decent and there's a lot of pinch harmonics in there riffs and slow chord based guitar along with the faster tremolo picking riffs. I did think that it's a promising release even though they totally sound like Dismember. But it's to be expected like I said since they're from Sweden. What stood out the most here were the guitars. I think that the riffs were really put together well and there's variety to the music.

Some bands can really hack it when it comes to rhythms and leads, but Corrosive Carcass does not hack it as I've said with the leads. Otherwise I would've given them a higher rating on this review. But let's dissect a little more and talk about the music. The intro riff is pretty fast and the sound of the guitars are super distorted. They are a band though that doesn't seem to incorporate too much technology in their recording. The riffs take a while to get into. They're not that catchy really, but the vocals and guitar go well along with one another. The guitars, drums, vocals and production were all good in achieving like I said that reverb sound.

That was their focus though, put something out there that does make their sound a little more intriguing and less Dismember-like. Even though they do sound like them, they incorporated some things that Dismember really hasn't done too much which is a clean tone guitar. I could be wrong about that though since I only own one Dismember release. I think that they are trying to establish themselves as death metal musicians and were doing something different with the music which was adding reverb/echo to the recording and include guitars that were filled with just so much distortion.

Corrosive Carcass is a death metal band that has enormous potential to write even better music in the future. But for now, "Composition of Flesh" was better than just mediocrity. They truly have a sound heard like no other besides Dismember which is what I've said repeatably with this review. They did need to take out the leads and just focus on rhythms until the leads get better played out. Who knows when that will be?! But at least they're trying to get more known within their genre of death metal. A lot of old school death metal fans I'm sure would appreciate this release since I know that many people that I know already dig this band. Don't miss out on it!
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