Embalmed Alive

Last March 2018 I stumbled upon a new band hailing from San Pablo City in Laguna, Philippines. The band is called Embalsamo, and I discovered them in the social media realm through their drummer, Vic Jarlego, who happens to be a member of killer Filipino extreme metal bands such as Ataul, Pathogen, and Rabies that I really follow a lot.

After I heard about Embalsamo, I was really ecstatic to listen to their materials, as I am a witness to how every band where Vic had pummeled behind the drum kit slays in every release. And after a month, I received good news because on April 2018 the group had finally released their debut full-length record, Embalmed Alive, under the banner of Laguna‘s Anugal Audio Terror Records.

Shortly after I got the news, I immediately contacted MG Diestro of Anugal Audio Terror Records and ordered my copy of the album, which I then received just a few days later. Right after I got the cassette tape, I took my analog walkman and played the album for almost half an hour, and during that moment I was awed by how Embalsamo had produced such very catchy and striking songs in a single full-length for just a short time.

The whole record holds thirteen thrash-fueled death-grinding metal tunes that are soaked in a slough of repulsive entrails and abhorrent innards. From the first track of the album up to the thirteenth song, the band goes into extreme deformity, and the listeners are going to get blown away in the face with a sonic two-ton fucking sledgehammer. A paragon is what we can hear in the band’s guitar section with some serious killer riffs provided by Kenneth Baldovino, and it is backed by Jamin Velasco with some distorted bass lines with a tone that is foul and with a deafening roar that will make the listeners want to go procure ear muffs.

Drumming is also on a solid level, and it manages to be in balance as it does not stand out that much against the other elements in this album. Vic‘s pummeling, especially when he dispatches those slaying blast beats, delivers a number of nice, varying drum lines, which gives the listeners a great lead into every track of the debut. Von Espeleta‘s vocal conveyance is also solid in here. He supplied a vocal delivery that has that sick and brutal attitude that provides a guttural stench to the tracks in the album.

With Embalsamo‘s unchaining of this debut, the band had established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the Filipino underground extreme metal scene. The band sure had grabbed a lot of the underground fans’ attention here. The album had sold out very quickly in a very short time, and, outside my review of this catchy material, I have heard a lot of positive feedback about it.

Entirely, this debut full-length is a fucking cogent release! It is disgusting and putrid, in a very good way, and the band sure knows how to pay homage to their influences while mixing in their very own touch of style in this material. To tell you, fellas, the truth, Embalmed Alive had brought me nostalgia of the early hybrid thrashing death/grind tone, which sounds quite like a midway point of primal thrash, early Florida death metal, and the mid-80s grindcore tunes.

Man, there is no denying that this band has put out a debut album that is worth the money to purchase and to add to your collection rack. I heard that they are also already working on the follow-up studio album, so this means it won’t be long until we hear another vile release from these funeral directors.