Try saying “disattachment of a prophylactic from the brain” really, really fast. Now try and say it faster. Faster again – like quick enough to fit into two beats of a zillion-bpm death metal song. Yes, it is impossible. Unless you are Undeath’s Alexander Jones, who performs that feat repeatedly throughout the song of the same name.
It is but one highlight from the Rochester NY outfit’s third album, which is evidence that death metal is very much alive.
The quintet have certainly found their voice on this one. And that voice is putrid, groove-pocked death metal that was clearly written to entertain, ruin hearing and wreck necks in a live setting.
I say this because Undeath are one of the few bands whose albums I have reviewed after seeing them live. And they play with the energy of a hardcore band – Jones leaps around the room and conducts the circle pit like he’s fronting Sick Of It All in the 1990s.
Undeath’s first album, Lesions of a Different Kind, was lauded and compared favourably to Cannibal Corpse’s early output. Their second record, It’s Time… to Rise from the Grave retained the strong Corpse influences, while upping the technicality.
This one is a massive leap forward. The production is brighter, the musicianship is more technical and – this may sound weird, but bear with us – Jones’s range has expanded beyond belief. The cookie-monster roars are there, but there is a harsher tone, a decent scream and on occasion a proper tough-guy metalcore edge to his vocals.
And the songs – there are breakdowns. There are handbrake turns of tempo. There is breakneck speed. There is an unhealthy amount of guitar pick harmonics – in a good way. The bass is fat and growly. The songwriting is top-notch. And lyrically there is more gore and fun than Evil Dead II (look it up kids, it was a classic). The gore is gruesomely illustrated on the album cover, which is so explicit that it causes google to slam on a safe-search blur if you look for an image of it.
We say “fun” reservedly, because, as in many death metal albums, there is a heck of a lot of violence depicted. Like in another standout track, ‘Sutured for War’, the detail of the body parts stitched together is quite revolting.
But it sounds like the band revel in this racket. And you know exactly what you are letting yourself in for from the very first track, ‘Dead From Beyond’ which is simultaneously brutal and technical, with enough of a modern touch to make a song about zombies sound positively fresh. And straight after, the title track almost has a singalong chorus, if you like your songs to go “In-SANE! Insane inside” while a crunchy riff cranks behind. I tell you, this album is built to be played in front of an audience.
And more about the aforementioned ‘Disattachment…’ One of the more unnerving things about the song is that it begins with a drum beat that sounds exactly like The Offspring’s ‘Come Out and Play’. But then we’re beaten around the head by Jones barking “Disattachment of a prophylactic in the brain, blood is flowing now beneath my rotted brow” as drummer Matt Browning segues into a furious blast. Most satisfying.
As are all the songs on here. No song outstays its welcome – and the entire album only exceeds the international-standard Reign in Blood unit (28 minutes, 55 seconds) for the perfect length of a brutal metal record by only a few minutes. Or if you prefer, the time it takes to say “disattachment of a prophylactic in the brain” a mere 4,050 times, if you roar it at Alexander-Jones speed.
