Conceived in Sewage

To be honest, I usually don't give too much of a shit about so-called slam death metal, 'cause I find it repetitive and boring. And concerning Devourment, I always have felt quite the same ever since their their first full-length, although their first demo was like a blow of fresh air into the underground scene worldwide back in 1997. But they quickly turned out to be as repetitive and boring as any other slam death metal band. In 2007 I saw them live in Madrid, supporting Suffocation, and I kinda tried to forgot them. In 2009, I gave them another chance with their fourth full-length "Unleash the Carnivore", but I was incapable to listen to the whole CD in a single listening.

Finally, here it is Mike Majewski's horde best effort to date, and the most shocking thing about this it's there's no slamming sections at all!! Sure they still play fast, with some blastbeats here and there, but they got rid of all that slamming nonsense, which is actually so cool. Drummer Erik Park does a more varied job, playing some fast patterns combined with faster blast-beats and slower groovy sections, as in the opener "Legalize Homicide", or the title track. He also uses a wide variety of crashes and cymbals, as most of DM drummers do nowadays.

Rubén Rojas plays some fast guitar riffs, catchier than those of previous releases. I think this is maybe due to the slowering of their style, causing them to be, so to say, more listenable than ever before since one can really hear what's going on in each one of the songs. They don't make an impenetrable wall of noise anymore, they play now a very enjoyable style of brutal death metal, although their old fans maybe will not accept it willingly, given they lost their "slammity" in transit.

Bass guitar seems almost hidden, it's cleary audible in little moments. As usual in death metal, bassist Chris Andrews plays with pick, so it's as powerful as your average death metal bass player, not awesome, but correctly played. He keeps up with the band, giving it its final thick sound.

Mike Majewski's voice sounds brutal and harsh, even more than before. Nice performance for a vocalist I found sometimes monotonous and boring. As always, lyrics are completely gore-soaked, violent and sick; they tell us about killing, raping, fucking dead bodies, and all these delightful things.

As I stated before, maybe die-hard fans of old Devourment may not like this, but it's again a fresh new blow of wind into the underground scene worldwide, just like they were 16 years ago, back in 1997.