Indungeon - The Misanthropocalypse (1999)

Indungeon must have come to the same conclusion about their debut Machinegunnery of Doom that I did 25 years after the fact, because their sophomore effort The Misanthropocalypse is instantly more explosive and exciting than what they were writing just a few years prior. Now, they might not have really settled on a real direction yet, having just slapped it all together as a project, and the shift in quality here does come at the potential expensive that this could be considered a lot more trendy and 'current' with the melodeath explosion of the later 90s. With bands like Darkane and Soilwork releasing great statements in the wake of At the Gates, this group wasn't to be left too far behind, and thus there is very little sense of being deliberately old school as they were with Machinegunnery.

You might have encountered this album if you were digging deeper into the 'melodeath' of the era, or possibly the melodic Swedish black metal stuff like Dissection and Sacramentum, and that's exactly the crowd it would appear to. Workmanlike, but fast and involved melodic rhythms twisting about the shuffle of upbeat drumming, with the snarled, tortured vocals spilling all over it like fleshy entrails being torn from the carapace of some robot or Space Marine's armor. Yes, at its foundations you still have the 80s thrash influences, like most of this style, I can hear a little Slayer at the onset of "Sentenced to the Flames", for instance, but this one's meant for the brawling, boisterous weekend clubs where the band would presumably open up or interact with some of those bigger names in melodic death metal that were exploding all around the world, beyond just the Swedish scene. To that end, it's competitive, convulsing with energy, gang shouts and riffs that never suck even if they don't swindle their way straight into your memory.

It's furious, frenetic, and makes the debut sound like the tanks on its cover slowly treading along and taking heavy fire. The leads are serviceable, but there aren't enough of them and they don't stand out against the more brazen rhythm guitars crashing about the record's atmosphere. There's also a little bit of a bluesy flair that occasionally pops up like some of the licks in "Battletank No. II" that sound a fraction out of place and make The Misanthropocalypse sound more like a party than you'd hope. But considering that this would prove the project's swan song, you might as well go all out and bring your best Jimi Hendrix with the Bolt Thrower-meets-Nocturnus cover artwork. There is nothing really exceptional about the album, but if you're craving lost underground gems from this style and/or period, or you're a fan of perusing the good old Invasion Records roster (as I am), this one can still be a decent use of 35 minutes.

Verdict: Win [7/10]