2025 Everlasting Spew Records (CD/CS)
www.everlastingspew.com
4/10 CRUSHED FUCKING SKULLS
Heavy, thick guitars over natural sounding drums and cavernous vocals meet your ears upon pressing play. I hear hints of Morbid Angel and perhaps some Deicide and Asphyx in their attack, but vocally Incantation is the clearest influence. These gents are accomplished musicians, being in about nine million other bands (seriously, go to Metal Archives and look, it's crazy). However, this does not save them from having just a very ok album on their hands. Too many of the songs rely on similar riffs, leading to a record that just bleeds together, and only the atmosphere they create remains. It's honestly like listening to one long song. And something weird happens when they slow down, at least in the first part of the record - strange time signatures. I'm not sure if this is intentional, a product of the recording, or just not being tight when playing slow, but I'm leaning toward intentional since not only are these guys in a bunch of bands, but this is not their first full length with Occulsed. The drums are more or less tight during the speedier parts of the album, so I'm just going to go with they made some strange choices recording the slow parts. The drums can be a bit loose in the fills, too, reminding me of old Possessed in that regard. It's not a hard pass, but it's a pass for me on this record, since all these things together lead to it being a bit of a chore to listen to.
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