Swamped in Gore

Broken Hope is a name that you shouldn't be too unfamiliar with if you've delved somewhat into the death metal genre. They are known for having one of the lower death growlers of all time in Joe Ptacek, and I've seen them mentioned among the pioneers of the brutal death metal subgenre, mainly because of the extremity of the vocals as well as the general heaviness and eschewing of thrash elements that defined the forbearers of the death metal genre.

Most of the music on display here is relatively midpaced. Songs like Bag Full of Parts, Awakened by Stench, and the title track are driven by heavy grooves that definitely get the blood flowing as well as the head bobbing. That's the best thing about this record: it makes you bang your god damn head to the awesome grooves of this album. Some songs such as Incinerated, Dismembered Carcass, and Gorehog do contain blast beats, but these are mainly just for additional extremity and are not the main crux of the music. So, if you prefer your death metal to have little to no blast beats, you should hear this album immediately.

As with most death metal, the vocals on this album are unintelligible, but instead of the typical growls that were common at the time, exemplified by vocalists such as Chuck Schuldiner, Martin Van Drunen, and John Tardy, which were more high pitched and weren't too low, Joe Ptacek, on the other hand, is one guttural bastard. His vocals on this album are very low, and very cool. His vocals literally sound like he is vomiting, which dealing with the subject matter of most of the songs, is what kind of vocalist you want in this band.

Anybody even remotely familiar with this album has heard that evidently, this was the first death metal album recorded digitally. That means nothing to me, because the production on this album is actually very decent, albeit a little quiet. The guitars sound heavy, and when they lock into a groove (which this album has in spades) it sounds glorious. The vocals, as previously mentioned sound great, and the bass does the normal thing bass guitars do in death metal, they provide a heavy backbone for the entire sound. Really the only complaint that could be leveled against the production on this album would be the fact that when the drums go to do blasts, it sounds slightly out of sync. It could be bad technique, but it's a very trivial complaint in the end considering this album isn't constant blasting. And the drums sound great everywhere else.

So, overall, this is one of those albums that you just rock the fuck out to, and forget all your cares. I'd probably recommend this to fans of Obituary, and Bolt Thrower, because of the emphasis on heavy grooves as opposed to extreme speed and technicality. Check it out.