This New Jersey band shows how finely tuned production can benefit a death metal band without going overboard and sacrificing organic qualities. The clean guitar tones made me willing to check out the first song, and everything fell into place sonically from there. With that said it means these guys have the death metal sound dialed, in but still have to prove they can write songs. A great deal of this hangs in the balance upon how reliant they are on playing fast. If they just blast the hell out of me I will get bored. The title tracks show they are willing to dive into more nuanced passages they will bookend with more battering blasts. There are some cool stomping riffs mixed in here.
Two songs in I feel hopeful about this album, but I have been optimistic and had plenty of albums fall apart because they threw the finer points of songwriting out in favor of just being brutal. The vocals feel like their weak point and the most atypical aspect of their sound. Just a low dry rasp that is sometimes layer with a higher growl. There is a bit of a groove to the main riffs of "The Void". The drummer knows to keep a good balance of double bass and does not rush the songs to numb you out with a hammer wall of kick pedals. I did not expect such a keen sense of riffing from a band I had never heard of before this initial listen. They are not as hooky as Frozen Soul but heading in that direction.
The double bass leading into "Ritual Corpse Division" feels like it just bled over from the previous. Once they get into the meat of the song, they are pretty aggressive. It is the first song that did not grab me from the onset. When they step on the gas for "Eviserate the Advanced" it feels like they are trampling the better ideas they had at the beginning of the song, though manage to find their way back to them. I always say I do not praise death metal drummers because they have to be good to play in this kind of band but Reeking Aura drummer Hudson Barth, makes himself a man to be watched with his performance on this album.
The blasting at the onset of "Interstellar Offal Dealer" does not do much for me, neither does when Barth doubles down on the rampage he reigns down onto his drum kit. They groove things out more and give the chorus more of a gang vocal feel to make it stand out. I will give this album a 9, as it sounds great, despite not being the most original thing I have heard they are very talented at doing what they do, and care about writing songs, It is brutal enough to be embraced by fans of death metal. One of the best-sounding death metal albums this year. It drops on June 28th.
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