HORRIFIED - Descent Into Putridity
November 18, 2014, 9 years ago
(Memento Mori Records)
Gadzooks, at some point even the most hardened death metal lugnut like me has got to start questioning when enough is enough, when I can just listen to a Nihilist demo, an Asphyx EP, and call it a night. For better or for worse, us DM zombies can never get enough, so here we have it, UK deathsters Horrified, who clearly want to keep things as raw and old school as possible, the production here punishing in a pretty excellent, thin, demo-level way. Too bad the tunes don't have much in the way of personality; rather, it's a smattering of first-album Entombed here, some Van Drunen worship here, a bit of polite DM blasting there. Man, I'm getting excited typing this out, even though when I listen to this album, I'm just pondering horrible questions that I never thought I would ponder ("Are there enough death metal albums out that sound like this now forever?"). So, buy it, listen to it once, toss it on the pile, forget about it, and still regard it with just a bit more reverence than you would a forgettable album by a generic band of another subgenre, because it's death metal, and you're a death metal guy, and so am I. And, despite this album's shortcomings (it's basically disposable, but you're a death metal guy, right?), the fact that these are a bunch of young dudes gives me hope for the future. The kids are alright, after all.