Burial Ground/Grave Wax/Severed Limbs/Crospy Maniac - Four Paths to Horror (2015)

Four Paths to Horror is a 12 track split CD featuring four bands, three of which are projects from prolific death metal gurus Kam Lee, Rogga Johansson and Patrick Bruss, who combined must make up a not insignificant portion of death metal releases these last two decades. The idea of course is that all of these groups have a heavy lyrical bent on the horror genre, something that can probably also be said for the wealth of that trio's constituent bands. That is truly the connecting ligament on this release, because individual, while there are comparable traits between the acts, they often approach their genre with different production values and songwriting quality, and while that's not always an unwelcome factor on a split recording, it sometimes works to the detriment here because the level of professionalism seems highly inconsistent.

First off you have Americans Cropsy Maniac blasting through four tracks and six minutes of Carcass spawned deathgrind, starting off with some samples to their namesake slasher and then just bludgeoning you at high capacity with only a few hints at tossing in some background guitar melody or something that could actually make the tunes mildly more interesting. It doesn't quite work, and though I could say these guys are the most energetic on the split, they also gave me the least return. Belgium's Burial Ground, a group that has existed almost entirely on the demo/split level thus far, dishes up some crude but evil old school death metal that I thought was quite cool, almost like a mix of Autopsy's raw and grotesque punk-death form and the more structural Germans Morgoth on their earlier recordings. The riffs didn't always stick with me so well, but I can at least say I experienced some fond flashbacks for that late 80s/early 90s era, they had some curious quirks like a loud bass tone and even some narrative on their paean to "Last House on the Left". Fans of old Autopsy, Asphyx, and the like might wanna track them down, I believe they've got a compilation out that might have all their split material.

Even uglier is Kam Lee's Grave Wax, who have an even cruder and uglier style than anyone else on the split, and though Lee's vocal effects are cranked up to almost caricature level, these tunes were also quite fun, almost as if you were listening to them live but Lee was too high on the mixing board thanks to some zealous dweeb sound guy that wanted to fuck with the knobs. However, just like Burial Ground, these are actually fun, especially "Transmuting Techno-Terror". Ugly, inspired, no fucks given death metal. And bringing up the tail end of the recording are two tracks from Rogga Johansson's Severed Limbs, a decent project with a chunkier Swedish sound, although not just an emulation of Entombed or Dismember, but a more American style to the riffs, simply dowsed in that familiar production. These are two of the stronger cuts on the whole thing, and like his album Sores Galore that I reviewed earlier in the year, if you dig his other groups like Paganizer or Revolting you are likely gonna enjoy this stuff also. It's not a project he puts much importance in but certainly a worthy one.

In all honesty, I would have dug the Grave Wax, Burial Ground and Severed Limbs contributions as their own individual mCD/EP releases, or at least maybe just a 2-way split from the first two. Cropsy Maniac's inclusion here felt a bit stylistically disparate from the others beyond also belonging to the death metal genre in some way or form, you might have more fun checking out one of their own recordings; and the production across the bands lends to an uneven sort of experience, which I'm not terribly fond of on split recordings, but if you love all the piling on of the retro death metal these last decades then I think there are certainly enough highlights that it just squeaks by on the quality meter.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Burialground666/
https://www.facebook.com/gravewaxdeathmetal/
https://cropsymaniac.bandcamp.com/

Severed Limbs - Sores Galore (2018)

Severed Limbs is another of the Rogga Johansson solo projects where he's tackling some microverse of death metal influence by his lonesome without an established collaboration, and I think this one gets a severed leg up on some of his others in that it more closely resembles OSDM from the States more so than the total Swedish sound he often champions with a number of his higher profile bands like Paganizer or Revolting. Don't get me wrong, you'll still heat a bit of the similar tone and simplistic songwriting he can churn out faster than some individual scenes, but this one doesn't sound too much like it's trying to be any one individual or grouping of bands local to him. There was clearly a tongue in cheek sort of slasher/gore concept running through the earlier efforts In Each Scenario You Die and Collector of Limbs, but that's 'transcended' more into pure morbid horror worship here with titles like "Crushed by the Droid", "The Surface Waits the Hunter", "The Clock Says Devouring Frenzy" or "Submerged in the Sewers".

Sores Galore sounds like it was built upon the foundations of early Death and Obituary, with a dash of Bolt Thrower, Grave or Autopsy thrown in the mix. You've got those huge, evil chords you might remember from Cause of Death, but the creepy tremolo picked guitars are more Scream Bloody Gore or Leprosy. However, added to that is the sheen of muscle that is clearly descended from thrash and then carried forward by slower, groovier death metal bands. The rhythm guitar tone is quite good here, clear and powerful but has a nice crisp edge to it, and where the leads arrive they keep an appreciable contrast, even though they're brief and not too flashy. His growls here are also well done, more so than in his other projects like Humanity Delete, because they've got just the right amount of reverb to them, and they don't feel like a typical blunt guttural he'd use elsewhere. They maintain an aura of evil around them and have a little bit of T.G. Warrior hmph buried within, in fact there are even a couple riff breaks where I was reminded slightly of Celtic Frost but that would make sense as Obituary's better, early works were also clearly descended from them. The drums and bass here are functional but never stand out on their own, which is unfortunate since a few of the groovier riffs could have used some more interesting low end lines to make them catchier.

This is likely the sort of album of which you can predict nearly every chord pattern, but despite that it maintains an air of timelessness purely through the choice of notes and how those vocals and the whole mix of the album sounds great. I've been rummaging through a lot of Rogga's projects lately to see if I've missed anything, and I'd have to say this album does standout as one of the cooler ones and just a fraction distinctive from several of the others. That's not to say Sores Galore is great, but if you want a dependable dose of late 80s/early 90s style death metal, this one could have you nodding your head as you crank it out your speakers. Also really dig the cover artwork.

Verdict: Win [7/10]