Irreversible Disintegration

I seem to be on a death metal kick lately, specifically with the more brutal side of death metal as well as deathcore. Russia is known for its vast collection of bands in the deathcore and brutal death metal genres alike, with acts such as Abominable Putridity and Katelepsy on the death metal side, as well as Ease of Disgust, who falls more under the deathcore category. Abnormity is a Russian metal band that tends to mix both brutal/slam death metal with a few elements from deathcore. And holy shit, it is crushing stuff.

This is a very consistent album. From the beginning, you know what you're getting. Crushing riffs, unforgiving slams, and a handful of really cool breakdowns. However, this band is far more comfortable in the brutal death metal genre than deathcore. The song "Disease of Humanity" contains both neck-snapping slams and a breakdown at the end that can even classify more as a slam than anything. There are a lot of chugged riffs that add quite a bit of groove to this album, evidence being the riffing before the first slam in "Emanation of Putrid Entrails". This song also contains a solid breakdown towards the end complimented quite well with furious double bass drumming until it slows down to a near crawling pace. This happens quite a bit. A lot of bands in this genre tend to rely on a really slow, dirgy pace in their slams. "Mechanical Maggots" is yet another example. The solo in this song, while being very short, is a nice break from all the slams.

A commonality within a lot of bands that play this sort of music is the use of programmed drums. I am honestly not 100% sure if this is a drum machine or not but I am leaning towards "yes". The drums sound way too tight and focused to be real and if they are, this is surely a very impressive drummer. I just don't hear that organic sound of an actual drum kit. I've been wrong on this before however; don't take me too seriously on this. The bass drum leads me to believe this is a drum machine and even the snare sounds somewhat artificial. Skepticism aside, the drum work is really good here. The blasts and pummeling double bass really adds to the overall brutality of the music.

This is a short album. At only 33 minutes in length, it pretty much follows what seems like the tradition a lot of brutal death metal bands tend to stick to. This helps the music to not become tiresome or boring. I must applaud Abnormity here because they manage to find a really nice stopping point. For anyone into brutal death metal, you will have no trouble picking this album up and getting into it, or rather you shouldn't have any trouble. Another fine addition to the Russian death metal catalog.