Dying Fetus : "Make Them Beg for Death"

 The ninth from these death metal icons finds them stripping away the mathematics of their riffage and hitting you with something more streamlined. This captures a more classic death metal feel while staying true to who this band is. This approach never finds you questioning if they can write songs or are they only in it for the brutality. Sure the drummer sometimes default to blast beats, but there are plenty of riffs they groove behind. This gives the vocals more purpose. The vocal trade off is not always easy for me to distinguish, but I have more of an admiration of these guys rather than claiming to b e a fan. Though this album might sway the balance, as I also enjoyed "the Wrong One to Fuck With".  I would say this is hookier than most Cannibal Corpse, which is the band they come closest to sonically. 

"Feast of Ashes' does challenge them to see if the need for speed overtakes their supposed mission statement of writing catchy riffs. There is a cool stompy part here and there, but the rule here is cool riffs alone does not a good song make. For death metal it is about staying away from rushing the songs with stiff pattering blast beats, and keeping things interesting. Going into "Throw Them in the Van" it seems that the bane of their serial killer anthems might be playing them too fast. Not that I am against death metal being fast, it's all in how you do it. There is a little more head banging inspiration to "Unbridled Fury" until they step to hard on the gas. They grind back into a sweet spot groove wise on "When the Trend Ends". The more athletic guitar runs also begin to resurface at this point in the album. 

They continue grooving down the path of head bobbing fury on "Undulating Carnage". It is not opening any new doors for death metal, but paying respecting to the ones their era already opened. When the speed gets poured on they have already laid the ground work to give it contrast. They follow a similar path with "Raised in Victory Razed in Defeat", the difference being the effects of the faster tempo might cut like a  razor but doesn't quite carry the weight of the previous song. Though it is still an effective song. "Hero's Grave' just kind of blasts by me. 

"Subterfuge" finds them pulling out all the riffs at a speed where they can be more easily consumed by your ears. I do not expect these guys to focus on much more than hyper aggression. This is actually an improvement over what goes down on "the Wrong One to Fuck With' which was more single minded and not as song focused as they prove themselves capable of being here, so I will give this album a 9. This drops on Relapse Records September 8th.