This past week I've been served large helpings of some pretty brutal Pig squeal gutteral screaming vocals as I've been listening to "Ecstatic Death Reign", the first full length album by the 5 member Finnish Death Metal outfit that you didn't know you needed in your mundane lives. Ecscatic Death Reign is the musical equivalent of a sledgehammer to the face with a side of sludge, and then having a giant forest hog feast on your remains, all while squealing in gluttonous pleasure. The album opens with “Body Bog,” a no-holds-barred beatdown that leaves you feeling sonically crushed. With riffs thick as swamp mud and vocals that sound like a Yowie gargling with gravelstone, this track kicks things off with the delicate finesse of a concrete mixer and doesn't let up. It's brutal, efficient and a no nonsense track at 3:41 min run time.
There is more of this good stuff as you progress down the album and the track that stood out for me is "Anamorphosis". The song definitely has more of a doom/sludge feel and I loved it. The song starts of much like any other track on this album, blast beats from the get go with fast paced riffs but a minute in delves neck deep into pig squeals and gutteral screams for maybe half a minute, goes into a mini solo, goes back onto the main riff and then completely changes tracks and goes for a switch to a slower tempo with loads of gutteral screaming (cue for all you headbangers) with some really good drumming and finally ending with a guitar solo more bendy than a mountain road and ends with sound of blood being squirted out and sprayed everywhere.
Another song that will catch you by your liver and fling you around is "In death, a whisper". A slower entry but a solid way to end the album. You will feel the heaviness of the song like a Dab Tsog sitting on your chest, slowly choking the life out of your lungs, breath by breath.
Stylistically, the band's sound seems to lean more towards Sludge metal with Doom elements rather than Death metal, but then again, who the fuck knows the distinction between any sub genres these days. The stand out feature, which would also be the make or break aspect, is the vocals. Speaking in plain terms, it is gutteral vocals mixed with Pig squeal style vocals. Now this is not something that appeals to me, at all, and I was wincing at every prolonged squeal, which comes at you without warning.
There is a lot happening with this album and some of the stuff served up makes you scratch your head (like the blood spray sound), other times you get the feeling that the longer songs could be more crisp. With the double bass or blast beats, as much as I love some skull crushing double bass, there really can be too much of a good thing and it does feel that some of the song sections could have done without the 'supersize' helping of the double bass.
Having said that, I had a lot of fun with this album, as much as I enjoyed how heavy this album is, other elements made me chuckle, so if you are planning on listening to this album (which I definitely would recommend), here are a few of the "mosts" to look out for:
Most brutal song - Body Bog
Most Pig Squeals - Ecstatic Death Reign
Most blast beats - Anamorphosis
Most tempo changes - Anamorphosis
Most fake blood sprayed - Anamorphosis
Most words in song title - Ancient Tombs Sealed with Dead Tongues to Preserve the Hidden One Slumbering in the Bowels of the Earth (Mummified in Cavernous Darkness)
I would love to see them live, even if its just to have a laugh when they announce "the next song is Ancient Tombs Sealed with Dead Tongues to Preserve the Hidden One Slumbering in the Bowels of the Earth (Mummified in Cavernous Darkness)".
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