Into the Meat Grinder

Following two EPs, a demo and a compilation, Creeping Flesh finally have a full length offering of their Swedish death metal craftsmanship.

Bellowed vocals set things off before a savage barrage of guitar grooves and pounding drums deliver a hasty blow of crawling death metal ferocity. The cutting edge of Swedish death metal is pummelled out effortlessly as this album gets off to a fantastic start. We are given some melodic touches but overall this album is far more rhythm focused with monolithic deliverance of pounding instrumentals and brutal growls that will certainly get you banging your head. There are some gorgeously doomy atmospherics present while not detracting from the thunderous roar of tremolo riffs for too long.

Certainly some masterful songwriting is in place and a crushing production to match. As a big fan of slower death metal, this really hits the spot with plenty of really well executed soundscapes and a fierce performance from the whole band, that alongside the marvellous riffs, drum fills and guttural vocals makes for a captivating experience from start to end that never runs short of ideas to keep the ball rolling through fresh and fleshy assaults. Aside from a fairly typical approach to death metal, which is totally fine, why fix what isn’t broken and all, this is a blistering first effort that leaves room for improvement in terms of a less standard approach, but they successfully deliver a putrid concoction of devastatingly heavy extremity with impeccable skills.

It is always exciting when the fuzzy buzzsaw sound of a HM-2 creeps into the music, which the band use quite subtly (if that is possible for such a unique pedal) without it staying too long, just to stamp it with the Swedish mark which I thought was a really cool touch, showing attention to detail. Amidst an endless stream of death metal that is only growing, this may not capture your attention or stand out from the crowd, but it is certainly worth giving a listen to this slab of chugging gruesomeness.

Written for www.nattskog.wordpress.com