Exhumed - To The Dead

http://www.secret-face.com/

#FOR FANS OF: Death Metal

This is one helluv an album! In my opinion, better than their previous 'Death Revenge' that I have. I have yet to hear 'Horror' or their previous earlier material which was in the goregrind genre. This one is fierce and ferocious! Two vocal trade-offs, guitars with sick riffing and a dominating production be it that they're on Relapse nowadays! This album has balls-out intensity. The riffs are full of endless atrocity to your eardrums! Totally their aim on here it wasn't just mind-boggling it was crushing! I enjoyed this the first time I got it then I had to get the physical CD sort of my way to support the band!

The leads were pretty good on here, too! All together this was or is my favorite Exhumed release. I only have heard bits and pieces of their early work which I didn't care much for. But 'To The Dead' is my absolute favorite Exhumed album to date. There are no flaws here on this album, it's got so many highlights I'm just glad that I heard about it. Just buy coincidence through a mutual friend I thought I'd check it out. BOOM! I was in I was totally in! These guys know what they're doing in terms of the concept of this release. Never into the lyrics, there are some songs with strange names to them.

I'm just going by what I've heard on here not so much their writing concepts. The tempos are all changing but not that drastically. Fresh riffs for every song! I like the vocal trade offs it made it more brutal and gave more variety. There are blast beats on here but they still fall under the death metal genre. No more goregrind. That is a thing of the past with them. They're diversifying in terms of sounds they're killing it with their death metal riffs and burly vocals. Totally underground mania! I'd have to applaud the band for such an outstanding performance all almost 40 minutes of this release.

Their album 'Death Revenger' I thought was OK. I never really got into them until I heard this. It blew my eardrums upon first listening to. The production quality was sick everything seemed to fit in perfectly. I'm not taking any points off from this one because I believe it's one death metal album that's tops for 2022. I hope this reaches plenty of fans of the band or death metal in general. It is available for streaming but I went further and made a purchase (like I said earlier). This one goes down as one of my favorite death metal releases for Exhumed in the death metal genre. Check it! (Death8699)

(Relapse Records - 2022)
Score: 84

https://exhumed.bandcamp.com/album/to-the-dead

Exhumed - Necrocracy

#FOR FANS OF: Goregrind, Autopsy, Avulsed

Having returned to glory in a big way with the stand-out 'All Guts, No Glory' a few years ago, gore-mongers Exhumed have offered up another exceptional splatter platter here with a fine mixture of their past and present. Still wringing their hands in the gore/grind trade with their propensity for intense, tightly-wound rhythms, technically-precise guitars and knack for bloody and disgusting lyrics, it feels right at home here amongst their early works but adds in an extra dimension here with a slight melodic flair in the riffing arrangement from time-to-time that breaks up the monotony slightly and brings in a newfound toy to play with despite still wanting to utilize what’s been in their toychest all these years. Bristling with stand-out drumming patterns from Deeds of Flesh skinsman Mike Hamilton who throws in a propulsive amount of double-bass lines and top-notch fills, they drive the speed that works in guitarist/vocalist/founder Matt Harvey’s wet, sloppy growl that still sounds as messy and disgusting as their heyday over a decade ago, and when it’s all wrapped together with a well-composed tendency to switch from simple thrashing to technical virtuosic displays and even the aforementioned melodic flair, there’s a lot to like here. Starting off with the spectacular "Coins Upon the Eyes," and carrying on through the title track, "Sickened," "(So Passes) The Glory of Death" and "The Rotting," it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen throughout as we get razor-edge riffing, tight arrangements and blinding thrash-like speed merged together in one wholesale package, if anything on this release could be considered wholesome. Thankfully, there’s some fine originality to take place here as "The Shape of Deaths to Come" introduces those melodic interludes to keep the material broken up slightly, "Dysmorphic" offers a lengthy acoustic break in the middle of the track and the blistering "Carrion Call" offers something resembling a call-and-response chorus, a little-featured facet of their sound which is briefly featured for what must be the live experience. That said, the big flaw here is pretty much the fact that the band is pretty consistent in their approach and don’t really offer up much in the way of variation or really differentiating their music from each other as this gets pretty hard to really tell apart in the later half as it blends together really quickly here, but all in all this is some prime era material on this and definitely ranks high in their discography if this minor issue doesn’t matter too much. (Don Anelli)

(Relapse Records - 2013)
Score: 80

http://www.facebook.com/ExhumedOfficial