France. Not the first place to that leaps to mind when you think of brutal music. Not sure why though….. The French gave us some amazingly brutal movies like ‘Inside’, ‘Frontier(s)’, ‘Vivide’ & of course ‘Martyrs’….. but musically all that leaps to mind, to me at least is Benighted.
Well….not any more it doesn’t – this five piece from Blamont has released a killer record with ‘Morbid Collection’ which, in my opinion, buries the last album from Benighted.
These guys have never popped up on my DM radar before which is a shame as they have been smashing it for fifteen years now and this is their fifth full length and the follow up to 2011’s ‘Only Hate Left’.
Now just because these guys are billed as a ‘brutal death metal band’ doesn’t mean they echo the usual ‘Br00tal Slam’ tripe with a singer that sounds like a pig being killed with a garden rake while humping a walrus. No ‘brrreeeee breeeeee’ rubbish here…..well maybe a bit but that’s cancelled out by the brilliant vocal performance by Jerome. Best brutal DM vocals since Mark Gleed’s performance on the last Amputated record.
Musically this is aggressive, full of blast and caustic riffage. Leagues ahead of your usual BDM stuff and a really good listen. 11 tracks of hate, but hatred with a really cool and original creative edge. A wicked bass sound supports the insane drumming from Sylvain Chambard who really earns his keep on this album propelling the band forwards at light speed yet never sounding overly frantic. Always controlled. Always inventive with some crazy fills – check out ‘Chronicles of A Decline: Obsessions’ – amazing.
The guitar work of Marc & Will is savage but more technical & progressive (and strangely more melodic) than most bands in this genre. In places it reminds of Suffocation but with a more ‘tuneful’ waft….if you know what I mean. I’ve touched on Jerome’s vocals and at times they really amaze – like there’s 3 or 4 different singers – higher pitch screams to multiple layers of nasty grunts and growls.
Tracks like ‘The Suffering Remains’ & ‘Ritual Time’ are great examples of this bands technical prowess and yet flow together as nicely (nicely is a shit way to describe it but you get my drift) as say, a Soilwork track. I know that probably makes no sense but hey ho.
This is a cracking DM album, the lads are doing something really original and I’d thoroughly recommend you checking it out – it’s really deserving of attention in a genre that is mostly laden with derivative rubbish.
(8/10 Mark Eve)
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