I remember the first Maim album in 2009, mostly because I thought it had a brilliant title “From The Womb To The Tomb”. The music was bang on too. A mixture of early Dismember and Entrails with a hefty dollop of grease on top. Proper old school Swedish death metal. I missed out on their second LP 2011’s “Deceased To Exist” but I understand it went over well with fans so here we are with “Ornaments Of Severity”. Crap title aside this is pretty cool stuff and the band have slimmed right down to a two piece now, with original members Christian Sandberg on guitar and vocal duties and Henric Ottoson on drums.
Musically this is eleven tracks of pure Swedish death metal, aggressive buzzy riffing, reverbed throaty vocals and a lovely organic drum sound. Obligiatory (w)intro “Caves of Echoing Madness“, leads into the good stuff with, and in my top ten song titles of the year, “Coffin Gloryhole”. The band summon the death metal demons with some cracking mid paced riffs with the ride cymbal everywhere amongst the speedy fretwork, a common theme on this record where speed is not the be all and end all. “Judas Cradle” for example leads in with a menacingly heavy yet familiar sounding riff before shifting gears and disappearing off towards the horizon. Although the last few seconds sounds like someone knocking one out in a quiet room….. when you hear it, you’ll agree.
The chaps are clearly all over their instruments and I really liked the vocals on this. The mix of styles and tempos is clever without sounding forced but…. there’s something missing. The songs do suffer from a lack of catchiness, something the Swedes usually excel at. The production too is a bit thin and could do with being chubbed up a bit. The promo blurb says the bands vision was to create “filthy and raw death metal” which they certainly do but a better production job could’ve done wonders for the material which is good just don’t expect to be humming any of the riffs later that day.
(7/10 Mark Eve)
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