Street Tombs : "Existence Is Corruption"

 In today's musical climate, it is not hard to damage the second album from these Santa Fe death metallers, breaking them into the larger metal scene. They have some thrash riff smarts and a raw punk attitude coupled with their more feral embrace of death metal. Going into "Deceptor," they are almost crossing over into thrash, with the vocals being the main thing anchoring them to death metal. It does speed up as the song progresses into something that recalls the early days of the genre. There is a much more dynamic take on songwriting than I expected, with some of the more nuanced passages while still being true to the raw punk spirit. 

"Septic Values" is pretty solid, not speed-obsessed but keeps the energy up as needed for this era of the genre. The vocals have purpose. Some cool more traditonal metal riffs are going into "Upset the Grave" before it gets some double bass under it and goes cruising off. "Systematic Suffering" runs closer to the more expected side of death metal and has less of their own peronsaluty embedded in it., still a decent song, just not as vital as the first few. By the time we get to "Mental Mulilation," things are beginning to run together and sound the same as the dynamics begin to find similar footing. This song is a little more deliberate, but when it speeds up, it all runs together..

The death thrashing races on with "Braindead". The vocal accents shift a little, but it racing long a similar highway as the other songs. A dive bomb Slayer solo or two join in. The last song sounds almost just like the previous song as things find a more monochrome sonic formula to fall into I will give this almost an 8.5 as the first half is strong enough to balance things out when it finds the songs sounding too similar. Being released on Carbonized Records

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Street Tombs : " Reclusive Decay"

 This band from Sante Fe, is pretty much recycling old school death metal. In doing so they have invoked the days when death metal crawled out of the more aggressive darker side of thrash, so bands like Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower and early Unleashed and can be heard in their in-your-face attack. This is done in a catchy manner on the first song than the faster second track which could be any death metal band from the late 80s. There is ample Slayer influence at times, but "Hell Awaits" is the single biggest influence on death metal at the time, so this is to be expected at well. The lows are a low growl that buries the lyrics as the guitar race around it. The drums are a little buried in the mix as well.  

There are some creepier guitar melodies to "Devour" which work better for me. However even then they are not reinventing the wheel, and pretty much spinning around heavy nostalgia. It is more thought out as a song, which when bands like this get caught up in bringing a sound back from the dead that tends to be the focal point. So that plays to their favor, after all when it comes to this kind of death metal, I am listening for what makes them stand out from the pack. for death metal is marginally faster than mid-tempo, so they are not tripping over themselves in order to play the fastest. I am also surprised they do not hit you with a barrage of guitar solos.  

"Rising Torment " is not exceeding my expectations when it comes to this sort of thing. Not really that hooky in terms of the razor-sharp tiffs. By the time we get to the more up-tempo ripper " Commanding Voice of the Damned" I feel like that these guys are certainly proficient at what they are doing, but it feels like in any city you go to with a metal scene there is going to be at least one band who does this. They might do it better than most, but certainly not in the same league as the originators, no matter how much diving bombing is going on. The galloping chugs of the last song are very effective. Original not so much. But head band worth for sure. I will give these guys an 8, if you do not own the albums by the bands who started this then this might seem new to you, it is a worthy tribute for sure.