Aussie Gore from the Western Shores!! These guys have sewn together with an immensely enjoyable and bloodthirsty release. No messing about here, it’s heads down, horns out and heads banging. Complete with screaming guitar squeals, double kick by the truckload, mountainous bass and maggot-chewing vocals, Suffer In Rot are a relentless chugging machine. Very hooky and clearly well versed in the origins of death metal, the boys really hang their black shirts & balls out on the line with this one.
Old school metal indeed, with many in this genre just piling on the blast beats and wiggling their way up the fretboard, these guys bust out some well-rehearsed hooks and classic death metal moves. The solos come off more bluesy and decisive, rather than supersonic-sweep fretburns up the neck. Memorable riffs and audibility are always great partners when used effectively. The bass guitar comes up very well on this record & shines nicely. Too many bands in the death and gore genres tend to have the bass a little undecipherable. The vocals are quite good, with a tone like George ‘Corpsegrinder’ (circa ‘Vile’ and ‘Gallery of Suicides’), there are some well placed high-pitched, raptor-Esque screams that border on distorted power metal. It lends a certain diversity & sense of individuality that adds to the bands overall sound.
Throughout this release, the thick, Gorey and whiplash-inducing strains of ‘Suffer In Rot’ will make sure you give the album a spin straight after it’s squelched the last discordant note. From start to finish, this album doesn’t let up, nor does it stray from the confines of classic death metal. That’s not to say this is something you’ve heard many times before, in a time when much of heavy and death metal is being taken up by overuse of speed & technicality, abuse of pro-tools & the like and every second band claiming to ‘redefine’ and ‘pioneer’ a new genre of death metal with every release, bands like this tend to keep the genre grounded in its roots and do away with the gimmicks and get back to song-writing and headbanging.
Well produced, it keeps a clearly defined sound without coming off like another death metal clone band using the same cloned ‘virtual amps’ & the like. This is a compelling release from these guys, sure to get many a head a-bangin’ and many a fist a-pumping.
I definitely look forward to future releases from this band. Tracks like ‘Ripped at the Crotch‘, ‘Butchered‘ and ‘Feast‘ are stand-out tracks and would be well suited to a live setting. I quite enjoyed this walk down dismember lane. Cheers.
Suffer In Rot: Facebook
Release Year: 2015
Label: self-released
Category: Album
Country: Australia
Reviewed by Black Jack
