Formed in 2009 and featuring a number of musicians from Swedish deathsters My Own Grave, Gluttony entered into existence purely to make Swedish death metal as it “sounded back in the day”. A less than novel objective in this day and age, the more cynical amongst us might sneer. But, these guys have a few things on their side in pursuit of orthodox zombified madness: firstly, neat cover art by horror comic artist Jeff Zornow; second, mixing and mastering courtesy of the unstoppable Dan Swanö; and finally, not to mention most importantly, collective death metal-related brain damage.
‘The Revenant’ starts out with a threatened quote of ‘Something’s coming…’ before an almighty GRRR! explodes out of Anders Härén’s guitar. His tone here is enormous – with each movement of the buzzsaw reverberating long after it’s done – and when combined with d-beat, the whole scene sounds like it could have been captured at Sunlight Studio. Each brutally heavy riff/beat cuts you down the middle, while some nice melodies mix in now and again to offset these and Magnus Ödling’s suitably ugly vocals. Title track ‘Beyond the Veil of Flesh’ appears abruptly, proceeding to smash against eardrums with the force of a lump hammer before delving off into speedy Entombed/Dismember territory. Along the way, we get some nice explosions of kick drum but the really encouraging aspect early on is how the band changes gears in their music to keep it inescapable. ‘Eaten Alive’ (following a quote on the pros of cannibalism…) drives nails into the listener’s flesh with excellent lingering riffs while the quicker sections masterfully echo ATG.
Come the midpoint of the record and it’s fair to say that the to-the-point approach of Gluttony is right up my street. ‘Raise the Dead’ (no Venom cover) again draws comparison with Dismember via its mix of unabated violence and thick melody, with production to match. Perhaps the moment where it becomes clear that there are not going to be any surprises however is ‘Coffinborn’. Okay, so it contains many of the ingredients of the previous tracks – groove, intimidation, some melody – but almost sets a pattern for the album with one fast tune followed by a slow one, and no major revelations in the songwriting. That said, it’s still head-banging fun. And a similar analysis can be applied to the remainder of the disc: it’s all reasonably predictable in the early 90s Swedish death metal sense, but there are some ripping moments. ‘Post Mortem Decapitation’, stomps past with warnings of “zombie warfare”; ‘And Then You Rot’ goes at varying paces, with the odd nice fretboard nuance; while ‘On the Slab’ is variously dense and haunting.
This has obviously all been done before, and it’s easy to wonder if the compositions really differentiate themselves enough as the album plays through. Crucially however, ‘Beyond the Veil of Flesh’ is short, punchy and immediate enough to keep you stuck in its whirlwind of blood and buzzsaw. Plus, as mentioned a few times already, the production is perfect for this style of album. All things considered then, and it has to be worth a fair amount for enjoyment alone…
(8/10 Jamie)
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