Wounded Not Dead - The Alchemist

Hailing from London, England, Wounded Not Dead are a trio of progressive death metal powerhouse musicians originally from Brazil and Italy. Forming in 2014, and releasing their debut LP in 2017, the trio are now back in the underground limelight with their sophomore effort, The Alchemist. Wounded Not Dead are far from suffering from the dreaded sophomore slump. The Alchemist feels much stronger, incredibly more focused, and somehow way more impressive than the already-stellar debut, The Battles of Horus of Edfu. Let’s get into it!

Now, Wounded Not Dead’s vocals can be quite polarising. Thiago Carvalho imposing grunting style is not going to immediately be for everybody, it takes some time to warm to. Similarly to Oli Acheron of Archspire, once the vocals click with you, you really begin to understand just how special they are, and how different they are in a scene filled to the brim with hundreds of vocalists trying to be the next Corpsegrinder. For someone to really stand out can be jarring, but also fascinating to listen to. Thiago also plays guitar on the LP, and this dude can shred. Along with bassist Rimon Jaoude, and drummer Adriano Ferraro, the instrumental of the album is just so god damn powerful. The way the bass rumbles like an imminent earthquake, and the way the drums drive and charge like a convoy of battle-ready John Deere tractors is just blisteringly blissful to experience. Thiago’s guitar work plays with some crazy riffs and I had a lot of trouble finding the right way to describe it - all in all his songwriting and riffage comes off sounding like a gorgeous concoction of Feeding the Abscess era Martyr, combined with the spaciness of late pre-original split Pestilence. The band draws a fair few comparisons to Gorguts, though in all honesty Wounded Not Dead is a bit easier to follow. I’m not calling them accessible or radio rock, but what I’m trying to say is that if you couldn’t get into Gorguts and you hate Avant-Garde Death with a vengeance, that’s not necessarily going to make you struggle having a great time with these fellas.

The real standout tracks here, at least for me, were The Infinite All, due to its expert use of pinch harmonics and crunchy riffs, and The Omega Point, an epic two parter that manages to not go on for too long, whilst creating a real sense of awe and excitement. Misteeq’s keyboard and synth work on The Omega Point also add symphonic elements to the music, which is super welcome on the

latter side of the album, where things could easily start to feel samey and stale if not for adding the wider dynamic to the mix. That’s not to say that the music ever feels boring - Wounded Not Dead’s self-dubbed Space Death Fusion is anything but, however the onslaught of heaviness for the first six tracks benefits from the still-crushing breather before coming back for another standout track, The Driving Force, to close the record on one of its biggest and most devastating notes. The Driving Force trudges with a ferocity that really imbues itself into the entire album, with punchy, memorable rhythm-heavy patterns that push and crush the skull of the listener until it implodes - The Driving Force is claustrophobic in the best way, so much so that if you had a claustrophobia fetish, listening to the album closer would be more than enough to make you forget about modern science and devote the rest of your days to alchemy.

What’s really quite exciting, though I imagine bittersweet for the band themselves, is that The Alchemist was fully recorded back in 2020, but placed on hold by the label due to the Covid-19 pandemic putting a stop to touring capabilities. This means that although the band lost some of the traction from releasing their earlier singles, they’ve had 3 years give or take to write album number three. We could be on the precipice of the biggest one-two punch to come out of London’s Death Metal scene since god knows when. Of course this is speculation, but when I get this giddy there’s no stopping me.

Overall The Alchemist is a must-play for fans of Prog Death and Tech Death, and is refreshingly absent of Necrophagist-worship. Wounded Not Dead are not afraid to be different in a scene where everybody is starting to sound the same. I highly recommend checking out their debut as well, as tracks like The Harpooner deserve a spot on every death metal playlist under the sun. Wounded Not Dead are carving a great place for themselves and their fresh approach should warrant them a place in the modern death metal zeitgeist. I really hope to catch one of their shows soon as even imagining these tracks live is insane. This is without a doubt my album of the year so far when it comes to technicality, and it very well could be yours too.

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