How often do you read a review of an album in the magazines / on the net and the words ‘sounds like (insert band name)’ or ‘this is a (insert band name) rip off’ pop up? Happens to me lots and to be honest, when I was younger it used to put me off listening to the record (especially if it ‘sounded like’ a band I didn’t like….. which I guess is fair enough). Having said all that if it ‘sounds like’ a band I’m actually really into, these days I’ll give it a spin.
So what I gotta ask you is ‘Do you like Dismember?’. You do? Good, then you’ll love Smothered.
This is the Stockholm based band’s debut and they meld their old school Swedish Death Metal vibe with thrashier elements. Smothered would like to think so as they fuse their death metal sound with elements of thrash and black metal and the four piece are clearly HP Lovecraft nuts looking at the song titles ‘Crawling Chaos’, ‘Re-Animated’ and ‘Madness Take Me’. The bonkers sleeve artwork is a bit of a giveaway too.
Opener “The Ritual” begins with some ritualistic chanting of (apparently from the Necromonicon) and from there the band tear into the super fast and catchy “Dead But Dreaming” and then ‘Sovereign’. Fast & thrashy numbers both but as with the whole album there is some excellent darkly melodic guitar work which brings a richly atmospheric feel to the album.
“No One Left To Kill” opens (for some reason) a sample from the Wizard Of Oz. But for me the stand out track here is the supremely dark & brooding “The Crawling Chaos”. Pure Swedeath magnificence.
The ten track album closer ‘The Inevitable End’ is the perfect way to close the curtain on this record with vocalist / rhythm guitarist, Stoffe Eriksson, screaming ‘The end is fucking nigh’ bringing to mind Craig Conway’s character, Sol, in Neil Marshall’s ‘Doomsday’ flick. Air raid sirens, bombs dropping, savage riffing – what more do you want? Spot on.
Obviously if you’re not a fan of Dismember / Grave / Entombed etc you’ll probably want to swerve this but then if you don’t like those bands you’re probably reading the wrong website.
Swedish Death metal is in very safe hands with talented bands like Smothered & Entrails flying the flag for all things brutal. And remember – just because a band sounds similar to another band – it doesn’t follow that they’re not worth listening too….. unless they sound like BrokeNCYDE in which case feel free to burn their houses down.
(9/10 Mark Eve)
https://www.facebook.com/SmotheredSWE
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