Last Breath of the Dying One

Gelgamesh is a band from Indonesia that delivers straight forward brutal death metal, very much in the vein of 90% of bands performing this extreme musical style. I always listen to unknown bands with a certain degree of expectation and especially if you buy the record to support the worldwide extreme music scene but from time to time you get kind of disappointed.

As soon as the record hit my CD player I got sort of excited with the deep guttural grunts and blasting drums that “Rotten Dismembered Organs” spew to my face; “something pretty descent for a band playing brutal death”, I thought to myself. However, little by little, track after track my excitement turned to disappointment; first, due to the detached, long and most of the time unnecessary intros, second, due to the horrible guitar production and poor/generic overall execution.

In my opinion, intros are not just pieces of shitty horror movies or B movies that you throw on an album to try to connect the songs in some way. They rather serve as a way to create an atmosphere or flow through the songs and music structure. For example, Mortician and the zombie apocalyptic atmosphere from their intros that keep a good paste and connect the songs in a sort of “hectic cohesion”. In Gelgamesh case, I think intros are just there because they want to create a “mean” and “decadent” feeling but just manage to bore and reduce smoothness through the songs. For instance, the intro from the song “100% sickness” is unnecessarily long and not really gets you into the mood.

Crystal clear production is not expected from a band with track titles like, “Episode of the Serial Murder” or “Extra Fantastic Orgasm”, a band with a more technical approach perhaps. In spite of this fact, I believe that the guitars on this record are somehow drowned into the drums and vocals; they don’t really shine and are a little uncomfortable to listen as well as the general production and song structure. It is like the band tried to copy and paste or translated their favorite brutal death bands and albums but something went lost in the process. They didn’t go full gas and that’s what makes this album generic and with really few memorable and brutal moments to bang your head against the wall.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate this band, actually; I appreciate the fact that death metal is spread around the globe like an infectious and lethal disease (even in countries like Indonesia). However, I also think that Gelgamesh effort is just another one in the massive ocean full of bands that perform brutal death metal; this album is not very memorable and there are other bands out there that blast your brain with no hesitation or mercy (see: Purulent, Amputated Genitals, Vomit Remnants, Internal Suffering, Lividity among others).

The vast ocean of brutal death metal is full of savage beasts and leviathans that lurk in the darkness to decapitate and devour their pray and with “The Last Breath of the Dying One”, Gelgamesh looks just like a little fish almost at the bottom of the food chain. The only songs that highlight from the generic ones are, “Exhumed and Then Mutilated” and the self titled “Last Breath of the Dying One” which gives you some random brutality.