There are a few record labels that really guarantee a good release on them, and Transcending Obscurity is one of those. Heads for the Dead are another death metal project featuring the near ubiquitous Jonny Pettersson (Wombath, Henry Kane et.al.), this time joined by Ed Warby on drums (you may remember him from such acts as Gorefest, Hail of Bullets, Demiurg). So, another day, another death metal collaboration. What gives this time round?
Well, first thing is that this is a truly filthy beast; the distortion that surrounds the guitars is so frazzled it makes my skin itch just listening to it. On top of that, the vocals, courtesy of Ralf Hauber (Revel in Flesh), are the kind of deranged bellowing that bring to mind the real old school titans of the genre, such as Dave Ingram or Barney Greenway, being both feral and yet completely understandable. There’s a real punk inflected vibe on display here, and the music is none the worse for it. Take, for instance, “The Coffin Scratcher”, which is a rager that comes across like an unholy mix of Autopsy sickness, Necrophagia blood sickness and Deceased-like thrash moments.
Yes, “Into the Red” has a very distinct atmosphere. It’s essentially the aural equivalent of listening to 3rd generation of VHS copied Video Nasties. I defy anyone, upon listening to “At the Dead of Night”, with its lurching zombie-like tempo and nifty unsettling chord progression not to be reminded of late night horror movies. Elsewhere, one of the latter tracks on the album, “Multi Morbid Maniac”, has a real bass heavy terrifying groove to it. Old school death metal borrowed plenty from thrash and heavy metal along the way, and so it is with “Into the Red”, which shares a willingness to shrug off genre conventions in many ways. To perhaps punctuate this fact, Heads for the Dead actually cover Darkthrone’s “Transilvanian Hunger” as the penultimate track, and manages to perfectly translate the blackened alienation of the original by way of serial killer obsessed extreme metal. It really shouldn’t work – but it does.
The final track, “Creatures of the Monolith” has that kind of strange, almost doom tempo dragging riff quality not unlike the better parts of classic Morbid Angel; an angular, wilfully obtuse approach to death metal that works really well. Heads for the Dead therefore have carved out a space for themselves which is a little unlike other bands under the same kind of umbrella. A deliberately spiky, dirty dredge of extremity through very unwholesome territory. It’s a bit of a belter – it’s just that you may well need a shower afterwards.
(8/10 Chris Davison)
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