CUTTERRED FLESH : "Love At First Bite"

On the more extreme end of death metal, this band from the Czech Republic are thankfully just not settling for being brutal. The opening track carries a little more hook in the guitars in its first half with the second half of the song finding them more content with pouring on the speed. Where most death metal has a fixation on horror these guys seem to be into the bleak realities of space. Their grim vision of science fiction is translated sonically to get the story across. With "Repeated Intersexual Misunderstanding" the atmosphere helps give the song the room it needs to breathe while allowing an angular dissonance to pervade the efforts at groove. It is technical without being just about the math of it. 

This is their sixth album so they clearly know what they are doing. They attack your ears with renewed feral zeal for "Code of Zuurith" though this is where the album begins to get mired down in a blur of riffing that does not clear up until "Descent into Torment of Abyssal Whispers". The guitars give the vocals room to create a more purposeful narrative. Up until this point like most music of this kind, the vocals are more of an afterthought.  The riffing is also more memorable on this song making it one of the album's best moments. The production of the guitar tones becomes more noticeably conforming to the current trend of modern metal to have a very processed machine-like feel.  "Sarkam's Wrath Unleashed' also displays this more nuanced take on their songwriting. 

When they pour on the speed at the beginning for "Amanda" the results are not as impressive. The base does come forward more when things slow into what might be the chorus. "the Last Supper" is more deliberate. It starts off with a powerful syncopated chug. They contract this into a taunt palm-muted riff before stepping on the gas. They maintain this frantic hyper-speed for "Spawn of Vathus". There are some crunchier parts within this, but mostly dependent on speed. They have their moments on this album a sense of their identity in a genre that could have easily turned them into a faceless blasting machine. I will round this down to an 8, as the overall sound is uniform, but they are skilled at grinding it into your ears. This is being released May 24th on Transending Obscurity. 

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