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Exhumed - Gore Metal: A Necrospective 1998 - 2015
Released by: Relapse Records
Released on: Feburary 10th, 2015.
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Exhumed originally released their debut full-length album, Gore Metal, in 1998 but this classic slab of grind inspired death metal lives again thanks to this current version from Relapse Records. It's being reissued as a two disc set containing the original recording on one disc and a newly recorded version (“tightened up by years of touring and with a greatly improved recording†according to the press release) on the second disc. A limited edition LP version is also available. For whatever reason, the MP3s sent over for review purposes contain only the newly recorded cut of the album.
The lineup, as it stands for this recording according to the PR materials, is Rob “Bodybag†Babcock on bass and backing vocals, Mike Beams on guitar and backing vocals, Bud Burke on lead guitar and backing vocals, Mike Hamilton on drums, Matt Harvey on guitar, lead vocals and Ross Sewage sharing lead vocals.
It all starts off with Necromaniac, a blistering slice of speed that clocks in at two minutes and forty five seconds sure to get your head banging until it can be banged no more! This segues perfectly into the equally fast, grinding death classic that is Open The Abscesses, a song that is just as nasty and as gnarly as the title implies. Track three is Postmortem Procedures and it starts off with some of those silly 'cookie monster' vocals that are so popular with death metal bands, going back and forth between this style and the more traditional metal vocals, making for a song with some interesting contrasting styles in it. We get a fairly traditional, almost show-offy guitar solo here, albeit one that plays out over some super fast background shredding.
Limb From Limb starts off with a pretty epic scream and then does the vocal style switch up thing again over a three minute barrage of brutality. The drumming here is so fast it'll make your head spin. Nice chainsaw effects here towards the end, tying in with the album's cover art! Enucleation is really more of the same, though they change things up with a slow breakdown just before the half way mark where things get almost a little doomy (and throwing in some almost classic metal style noodling) before heading back to the insanely fast style Exhumed is known for. Casket Cruncher ends the first half of the record in grand style, hitting you straight between the ears with an opening scream that seems almost impossibly long before the vocals proper go back and forth. Fast and nasty, that's what these guys are going for and they're definitely hitting their marks.
Death Mask and In My Human Slaughter House continue to expand on the band's consistently dark, nasty, gory horror movie style lyrics and themes. The playing here is fast and consistently tight though those familiar with the original, noticeably more 'raw' original recording may or may not appreciate what they've done here. To each their own, the original recordings aren't any harder to find now than before this came out. Sepulchral Slaughter is an ode to butchery that features three minutes' worth of riffing and heavy, heavy bass and drums again kicked off by a really freakishly impressive opening scream that sounds absolutely insane. The vocals grunt and growl and shriek and howl and again, the speed and precision of the drumming really stands out. Vagitarian II is a lovely little ditty about going down on 'pustule ridden genitals that I adore' and 'the stench of festering menstrual discharge' and the fumes associated with it. Throw in a lot of puke and stench and blood references and you can see where this one's going pretty quickly and the vocals, which are just as over the top here as anywhere else on the album, really sell it. The song is a sequel of sorts to Vagitarian from their 1996 split EP Chords Of Chaos.
The album closes with Blazing Corpse and then Deadest Of The Dead. If you weren't into what came before, the last tracks aren't going to win you over but if Exhumed are your thing then it stands to reason you'll be into these tracks too. They don't change things up in any way as the album comes to a close, they just do what they do really well. The Carcass influence is obvious here but they have their own sound. The way in which the band mixes up incredibly gross lyrics, insane vocals and some genuinely impressive playing makes Exhumed - Gore Metal: A Necrospective 1998 - 2015 one that fans of death metal and extreme metal should appreciate. The retail version, in addition to the original recording, is also supposed to come with some liner notes but again, digital review materials didn't include any of that.
