Due to being massively overloaded with material it has been quite some time since I have taken anything from Imperative PR, and I had forgotten just how much I enjoy their press releases. This one starts, “I am faceless and I am empty. You could fall into the hollow pits of my eyes and tumble through the darkness forever, your screams of terror echoing endlessly in the blackness inside me. Beneath its fragile wrapping of skin my face is a featureless morass of hate and hunger, punctured by my broken, rotten teeth. I am a purposeless, meaningless creature and I will kill, maim, brutalize and destroy without thought or reason, until my own ending arrives in a flood of blood and pain; until I return to the nothingness from which I came.” I grabbed this one as I have always enjoyed the gentle touch of Canadians Necroticgorebeast and here we have their third album in just four years. Formed in 2017 we still have the same quartet, which speaks volumes of a band pursuing this style of music, in John Mayer (vocals), Michael Chamberland (guitar), JP Bouchard (drums) and Alexandre Brochu (bass).
This is slam/brutal death metal with no room at all for prisoners and no mercy given. 10 tracks, 31 minutes in length, it was mixed and mastered Miguel Tereso (Analepsy, Gaerea and Pyrexia) and he has allowed the band to be as hard and heavy as they wish while maintaining sanity in the studio. The drums are key throughout, and have been allowed to very much have their own voice so while the bass and guitars are at one level, and the vocals at another, it is the drums which often provide the cut through and Bouchard is all over the place, never happy to just sit back and provide some blasts but instead wants his drums to be very much part of the overall melody and attack. The band do move into grind at times, but also know when to take the foot off the pedal so the attack is varied and while always in your face there is still enough contrast to ensure one fully understand the meaning of the word “heavy”.
One can certainly hear why Comatose Music are prepared to keep pushing these guys, as they have already built a powerful reputation and on this basis that is only going to get stronger, Play it loud. Very loud. 7/10 Kev Rowland
