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

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