Grieving is a really strange thing. You hear about the five stages people experiencing this must go through, but it’s not until you’re in its clutches that you realize that experience is not linear and you face each phase often at the same time. That hurt often can expose other feelings, most notably anger, and it can make healing that much harder to achieve.

Maul’s second record “In the Jaws of Bereavement” drives to the heart of the grieving process, and over 10 tracks and 39 minutes, the band—vocalist Garrett Alvarado, triple-guitars attack Anthony Lamb, Alex Nikolas, and Josh Sanborn, bassist/vocalist Mike Griggs, drummer Robby Anderson—addresses the issues of dealing with loss and its aftermath with the proper amounts of frustration, chaos, and destruction, informing their pounding death metal with a hardcore edge and relentless misery. It’s an album that’s heavy in more ways than one, and the journey through it can leave you sore and breathless.

The title track opens with muddy, beastly power, barked vocals ripping through you, the pummeling taking on a hardcore feel. Haze wraps over the chorus, and then the band slays again, dragging a filthy, gutting pace toward “Blood Quantum” that slashes upon contact and unleashes beastly growls. The playing trudges, vicious leads opening and pouring lava, the pace slowing but not sacrificing a sliver of heaviness. Growls boil and retch as the pressure scrambles brains, dissolving into strange ambiance. “Weaving Cerebral Horrors” is burly and bruising, the chugging pace chewing flesh, the leads stirring the humidity that becomes nearly uninhabitable. Guitars boil in blood as the growls lather with foamy plasma, the massacre ripping to an abrupt end. “Spontaneous Stigmata” is heated as the guitars blister, again gnawing on hardcore veins, gruff howls leaving ample bruising. The heat gets more intense as the mercury crashes through glass tubes, the growls engorging as leads flutter, burying bodies deep in the soil. “Alluring Deceit” opens amid cold guitars, the growls letting the ice thicken, the force burying bodies beneath pounds of sludge. The playing leans into a strange storm of sounds, disorienting before everything fades.

“Midwest Death” brings scuffing howls, a driving and punchy pace, and then things calm, giving a slight reprieve before the next serving of brutality. Growls menace as the pace kicks up, mud caking veins, a suddenly calculated tempo spiraling into a vortex. “Unbridled Delusions” opens with a solid riff that stings and dizzies, the playing getting faster and seemingly promising carnage. It delivers just that, the pace getting steamy and thick like a stew, speak singing wailing away and causing contusions, guitars spiraling into a lightless pit. “Stuck Stomped and Smeared” has grinding riffs, a force that feel like it’s trying to piledrive you into a hill of nails, the bass so thick it feels like it’s tunneling through the earth. Agony strikes harder as the guitars smoke and make breathing a task, never relenting on the misery that pulls you all the way under. “With Each Voracious Lick” is a fast one, a filthy, punishing piece that pulverizes from the word go, coating lungs with coal residue, the guitars driving a wedge right through your chest. Closer “Drawn to Drowning” emerges from strange noise, and then techy leads attack, screams ripping as the playing clouds the senses. Guitars pick up the pace all over, roars spreading and amplifying the horrors, everything driving to a finish as menacingly as possible.

As its title indicates, “In the Jaws of Bereavement” is a dark, emotionally taxing record that delivers destruction in ample servings musically and adds an extra dagger thematically. Maul’s mix of death metal and hardcore continues to develop and wallop, putting you to the test repeatedly over these 10 tracks and refusing to give you room the breathe. This record is a wrecking machine in more than one way, and it’s one that will reward you over repeated listens as its layers of fury slowly reveal themselves to you.

For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/MAULND

To buy the album, go here: https://www.20buckspin.com/collections/maul

For more on the label, go here: https://www.20buckspin.com/