When you put three men who have been instrumental in helping shape the landscape of extreme metal in both the U.K. and worldwide, you know the resulting record is not going to pull any punches. Shane Embury, Mick Kenny and Drunk are “Born To Murder The World” and they are responsible for one of the most intense albums of 2018. If you know who these three are, and you know what they bring musically and it doesn’t sound comfortable to you, then click the back button.

For the curious, ‘The Infinite Mirror Of Millennial Narcissism’ is a sub-17 minute, relentless assault on the senses which sounds exactly like you would expect it to; Napalm Death paced delivery, Fukpig flavoured vocally and all the dramatics of Anaal Nathrakh to back it up/tie it together. It’s not pretty, it’s a crusty mess of blackened grind-death… And it sounds filthy!

The expected onslaught of blastbeats, scathing vocal growls and HM-2 driven guitars is there, but you do have the more theatrical spots of programming and samples to get to it. As mentioned above, this release heavily leans on the musical stylings of Anaal Nathrakh, so the atmospheric parts are there but once the ominous intro track ‘When the heart is violated(The Universe Remembers)’, ‘Brutality Alchemist’ gets things going. Drunk’s vocal growling over the Napalm-Nathrakh musical onslaught takes no prisoners, hitting hard in the only way three pissed off extreme metal Brummies can. The mix of Napalm Death inspired grindcore with the symphonic programming and intensity of Anaal Nathrakh persists through the entire release, momentarily easing off for the small interlude tracks, but these slight reprieves also serve as the glue holding the entire recording together as everything flows into the next track flawlessly.

In all, the only real flaw with this release is the total running time. Whilst it does boast some formidable displays of compositional prowess and musical intensity, it does seem to be over with entirely too quickly. Yes, the speed of the release does lend itself well to material from the likes of Fukpig and Napalm Death, you would expect some longer tracks or more tracks to showcase the oppressive atmospheric arrangements in tracks like ‘Genesis Misconception’ and ‘Negativity Plague’. Running time related grumblings aside, can we have more of this please?

(8/10 Fraggle)

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https://borntomurdertheworld.bandcamp.com/album/the-infinite-mirror-of-millennial-narcissism