Kam Lee (Massacre etc) and Rogga Johansson (Paganizer/Ribspreader) are at it again. Their second release as a collective, and The Grotesquery bring back their horror death metal with a tale that picks up where their debut release left off. Again, this is a concept album, but only lyrically, there isn’t any undue noodling of guitars, it’s down to earth death metal as you would come to expect from this experienced pair.

The concept is based around Mason Hamilton’s experience in Arkham Institute for the mentally ill. Each horrific experience encountered is explored, with topical song titles like the outstanding death metal beast ‘Gaze of Ghatanathoa (I Had a Nightmare)’ apart from telling this chilling story this has a monstrous metal experience just waiting to destroy your sound system like a bastard child of both Bolt Thrower and classic Unleashed. The bass is heavy, the production is heavy, all of which is explained as once again death metal maestro Dan Swanö is behind the madness. There is lengthy explanation behind the albums concept, I don’t have the time or will to explain everything here, I do this review for the shear utter continuance of competent death metal music on offer, and by that I mean these chaps are bloody good at what they do. The arrangement of ‘The Cthulhu Prophecy’ is a perfect example. The ability to gel a tempo and feel change part way through the track is something that sounds effortless after you hear the acoustic start and cluster bomb interruptions on the tracks formative seconds.

Essentials to know is that this second release is pure classic death metal, it is influenced by the likes of Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe, it is brutally recorded and it is a pretty special release. The only negative I hear is that there is not much difference in the musical stakes compared to their debut, but for the death metal purist, this really should not make any difference, the line up would normally entice most buyers of this release, it will me, it’s a cool listen and something that once again blows away those death metal pretenders you hear so much of in the popular media these days.

(7/10 Paul Maddison)

www.myspace.com/thegrotesquery