Serial Grinder

Yeah, okay, I'm guilty of judging a book by its cover. Sue me. When I fired up Cadaveric Crematorium's 'Serial Grinder', I took one look at the rather silly cover art and song titles as well as the band's Italian nationality and braced myself for some sloppy Giallo-grind. Which is why my suspicions were confirmed with the sample intro of 'Valloggia 250', and then cruelly dashed upon the rocks of reality with 'Jesus Virus'. But damned if these aren't some kickass rocks to be dashed upon!

When you think Italian death metal, you think sloppy, grind-influenced, lo-fi nostalgic horror material. Cadaveric Crematorium takes an entirely different approach, play thrash and grind-influenced death metal with a surprisingly high level of technicality and skill in songwriting. Not to mention the crystal-clear production values. 'Jesus Virus' kicks off some very cool little drum and guitar flourishes before going into a melodic death (!) lead portion that maintains a unique identity. It's right around the tiny, skittering hihat breaks that one realizes that all their stereotypes are right out the window.

Not to say that 'Serial Grinder' doesn't keep that Italian spirit of fun about it; the jazz break near the end of 'Brixia Chainsaw Massacre' confirms that as a definite influence. But it's not overbearing here as it is on so many other Italian releases: Cadaveric Crematorium rarely lets novelty get in the way of writing headbanging death metal. There are so many clever portions on this album that it's almost impossible to list them all. The little crust punk portion on 'Family Vivisection', the frantic tremolo riffing that opens 'Pathologist's Instability', the Slayeresque alternating triplets of 'Emorragia'- it's all remarkably well executed.

There's really only one throwaway track here ('Paster Of Muppets', a rather predictable parody that's the only genuine slide of Cadaveric Crematorium into the Giallo atmosphere), and the large departures from the typical DM are actually good! 'Infection' is a sorrowful clean guitar/ambience piece that somehow doesn't seem out of place despite how disparate it is compared to the rest of the tracks. I'm very happy to say that 'Serial Grinder' is one of the cleverer and more innovative releases to come out of Italy for a few years.

I came in expecting low-fi, sloppy DM and was surprised to find high-quality technical death metal. This is good stuff; look past the cover and check out what Cadaveric Crematorium has to offer.

(Originally written for www.vampire-magazine.com)