Fulci - Tropical Sun (2019)

When you're taking on the mantle of one of the grand masters of Italian horror, and you yourselves ARE an Italian band, I think that shoots the expectations for your music through the roof. Thankfully, while they can hardly be deemed a unique voice among the death metal hordes, Fulci delivers on most fronts an entertaining sophomore effort which taps back into the birth-throes of the brutal death metal genre, when it was more about ugly, knuckle-dragging primitive aggression than technical flash and inhuman instrumental exercises. Not to say that Tropical Sun ignores all the little quirks of its medium that have arrived since the mid 90s, but this is definitely not some New Standard Elite or contemporary Unique Leader style of release, it sounds like it's directly influenced by earlier Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation with a couple add-ons like the occasional deeper pig-squeal variant on the vocals.

If it's not obvious, this album is based on the 1979 film Zombi 2, and the excellent cover artwork via Chris 'Misanthropic Art' Kiesling perfectly captures that feel, an island vibe with the old school rotters lurching about. Steady wins the race, steady feeds your face. I remember being freaked out by the film for any of its flaws, and really appreciated the atmosphere its setting created since it just felt so different than the Romero zombie flicks I was accustomed to. These days we've had stuff like the Dead Island video game franchise to honor it, and I'm positive it's been lauded by a number of other death metal or goregrind bands in the past, but to have it as a central theme is really cool and earns the record some extra flesh-stripes. The theme is really only present through the lyrics, samples and synth pieces like the intro "Voodoo Gore Ritual", but it dresses up the brutality just enough to create a more fulfilling type of experience than your average, insanely illustrated BDM effort, and the overall package just stands out.

Musically, this is pummeling, groove-reliant death metal which is almost wholly pit-ready, with a lot of evil little trill riffs and zipping leads redolent of the Cannibal Corpse era I hinted at above, the first four records with possibly a bit more Corpsegrinder to some of the vocal patterns than Barnes. Though the riff construction largely feels as if you've heard it before, they manage to string enough catchy chops together that you feel like your back in the early days of the style. Chugging, bludgeoning, and lumbering forward at a generally casual pace, with an occasional death/thrash or OSDM outbreak that reminds me again of that aforementioned act in their younger years. You'll get some sparse surprises like the eerie clean guitars they toss onto "Splatter Fatality", or a bleak yet melodic guitar harmony in something like "Legion of the Resurrected" which had me thinking of vintage Bolt Thrower, or some un-intrusive synths, but on the whole the style between the tracks doesn't deviate all that much from its crushing, confident formula.

Production here is quite clean, but still packs a lot of punch because of the guitar tone. The beats are programmed to be effective and workmanlike, but they don't try to bite off more than they can chew and just do their job. The bass has a good volume and adds a little chunkiness to the rich saturation on the rhythm guitars, while the vocals are all broad, burly and well mixed whether they're switching or matching up the growls and snarls or the borderline toilet bowl gutturals they use sparsely. None of the tracks ever wear out their welcomes, and although they don't really experiment that much, there's just enough variety provided as they trade off between more melodic chords and chugging. It's a fun album, it'll take you right back, the lyrics are solid, the packaging awesome. As I'm pretty sure these guys' debut was at least partly devoted to Lucio Fulci's "Gates of Hell" movies like City of the Living Dead, I actually hope these guys will continue the trend going forward. Can you imagine a cool death metal record based solely on The New York Ripper? The Cat in the Brain? Don't Torture a Duckling? Hell, they wouldn't even have to stick with Fulci, numerous other cult directors could be visited.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.facebook.com/fulciband

Horde Casket - Melted Together (2020)

I think brutal death metal has to be one of the most difficult, if not THE most difficult sub-genre from which to standout. There's such a mechanical demand for some of the musical tropes common to the niche, and bands like Horde Casket do their best to fill these in, and if I were judging simply by a checklist, then I'd stay they fill in or obliterate a whole lot of those boxes. Ridiculous blast beats are all over the place, as well as hyper chugging and dextrous little hand exercise riffs that must clearly tax the players' tendons after a rehearsal session or live set. The vocals are their normal mix of harsh guttural and harsher rasp, in the tradition of your Carcasses and Deicides, and the overall momentum of the album is utterly fucking relentless with a slightly noisy mix that is like to give you a headache if you're just not attuned to what you're normally going to get out of the genre.

The issue at hand is that, with all of the obvious physical temerity and extremity that they are pouring into this release, it almost entirely fails to stick. There might be a few tricks up their sleeves like the walls of wailing guitars they bleed over the thrust of "Nocturnal Transformation", or the broken chugs below the inhuman blasting of "Disease of the Deceased", but it's usually just business as usual from a band that has always hovered between average (Bloodfiends, Landscape of Cadavers) and decent (Xenopocalypse, Slab of Infinite Butchery). I like the frenzied pacing of the leads, they always give the music an added sense of death metal escapism, and if you like the choppy slamming rhythm guitars matched up against non-stop pounding drums, there will be moments for you to get your dance on. There are some really great growl placements here that resonate, but just not consistently, and across all departments, Horde Casket doesn't lag behind much of the competition, but this is assuming you only want the methodical brutal death metal...

I honestly think the band could slow down or de-escalate itself once in awhile to create a greater dynamic punch to it, maybe throw in a less discordant whipping lead guitar, or make a crunchy groove riff that is actually catchy, where the listeners will get hooked to the chord patterns. Like so much of the brutal death metal, this one looks so bad-ass with its cover art, song titles, the band's name has always been pretty cool, but I fear that this stuff has become so commonplace that it just lacks a genuinely evil punch due to its mathematical commitments. If you are mining the rosters of Sevared, Pathologically Explicit, New Standard Elite and Unique Leader and like most of what you hear, then Horde Casket is unquestionably worthy of your time, but this one didn't leave me with much to remember afterwards other than the bruises.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

https://hordecasket.bandcamp.com/

Formaldehyde - Cemetery Devourment EP (2020)

Formaldehyde is a brutal Oklahoma death metal band which put out a few demos in the later 90s and then disappeared, only to return over 20 years later with some new blood in the lineup courtesy of Horde Casket, a band I've covered before, and will again soon with their forthcoming album. You can tell merely by looking at it that this is going to be some visceral, gore soaked, heavy shit, and I assure you that you will not be Rick Rolled, but that this is in fact as visceral, gory and brutal as the last half dozen slasher movies you watched which put a good portion of their humble budgets into some practical, sickening special effects. Whether or not that translates into memorable songwriting is up for debate, but if you're into this for the bloodspray only, I'm sure Cemetery Devourment will provide you with a little bit of entertainment.

The obvious comparison here is Mortician, not only because they include a cover of "Defiler of the Dead" at the end of the EP, but because there is a similarity to Will Rahmer's nihilistic guttural. The judicious use of horror samples here is a little overwrought since some of them go for two minutes or more, and aren't even that appealing at setting up the violent music that follows them. There is also a massive bass presence, not just in the plunking of the strings but the way the thick tone just hangs over the edge of the music so satisfyingly. But otherwise, there are a few differences with the New York goremasters, in that Formaldehyde doesn't come off quite as mechanical sounding or grindy. This is low-slung neanderthal death metal which comes at you with blasting precision or slows down into some of the thickest palm mutes and grooves I've heard the last few months. There are a couple spots that reminded me of groups like Ingested, only this band doesn't have any of the obvious deathcore connections, but just in how rich those chugs come across and how the production on them alone can bring a sick comfort to the listener even if the note choices are average.

As for the Mortician cover, it's fine...I mean half of the two-something minutes is a sample, but I doubt the originators would be dissatisfied with hearing a band pay them humble tribute. What I really want to hear from a band like this is just more musical, interesting riffs. KEEP those sick gutturals, keep the brutality, but just write riffs that pop off the background a little better. Maybe some virulent melodies, dissonant atmospheric chords, or a little more deviation between the blasts and chunky grooves. Bands like Katalepsy, Disentomb and others have proven that a little ambition can go a LONG way at this end of the extremity spectrum. Also, while I don't mind the samples, dial them back a little and make choices that are a little more sinister than just trying to relay us the sounds of carnage for most of their runtime. Those issues aside, Cemetery Devourment isn't all that bad for coming after a two-decade hiatus. It's got a cool looking cover, logo, total commitment to barbarity, and isn't the worst way to kill 20 minutes. They sound like they're having fun, and if you go in with the right expectations, there's a possibility you will too.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/formaldehydedeathmetal/