It was really the end of the eighties before I started to become aware of death metal proper. I was a thrash kid through that period (and beyond), being primarily a big fan of the big four and the British thrash bands of the day, but toward the end of that decade, I started to delve into the other stuff. I can remember getting hold of Death’s “Scream Bloody Gore” album on vinyl from an uncle, and marvelling at the artwork. It seemed so arcane, so menacing – and had elements of horror and an almost Dungeons and Dragons style wonder to it.
Over the years of course, there has been a huge growth, explosion and morphing of the genre of death metal. Splintering, fracturing, evolving and splicing with other genres and sub-genres to become a dizzying array of bastard doctrines.
“Rites of Gore” is a death metal album. It documents horrid things, has evil artwork, and has good old fashioned atmospheric and chunky riffing offset by gravelly bellowed but understandable lyrics that talk of being buried in swamps; splitting skulls and obliterating souls. As an American band, it’d no doubt have crossed your band that Sentient Horror might be yet another footnote in the long list of Cannibal Corpse-a-likes, but really this impressive New Jersey act have much more in line with the likes of early to mid-period Death and Obituary than they do the rather more atonal and “brutal” side of the house. When Matt Moliti (vocals and lead guitars) sings, he’s rather more Deceased than deathcore, and all the better for it. Likewise, Jon Lopez (rhythm guitar) ploughs a great furrow in those old-school groove-und-headbanging riffs that pure death metal is unmatched at. The bottom end, courtesy of Tyler Butkovsky (bass) and Evan Daniele (drums) keep everything pinned down and inventive in passages, such as the writhing end of rager, “Descend to Chaos”.
There’s plenty here for the death metal aficionado to admire. It’s a modern twist on classic death metal, without ever coming close to sounding like a retro-outfit, a la Gruesome and others of that ilk. Even with the superb rendition of classic Entombed track “Supposed to Rot” at the end of the album as a bonus track, they manage to inject their own sound and spin on a song that has inspired at least 50,000 bands with an HM Boss 2 pedal to nick their font and start their own band.
Top, reliable, groovy and heavy death metal. No frills. No nonsense: just heads down smashing it. Sounds like a winner to me.
(8.5/10 Chris Davison)
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