If you want death, you got it. Let’s not mince words today. We like to have a relevant opening, but sometimes just getting into it is the way to go. I’m not really doing that, am I? Anyway, hungry for scathing death metal that makes you feel the scope of unimaginable horror inside? Can’t go wrong with Glorious Depravity, can you?
Their new album “Death Never Sleeps” is what every whiny baby who hates nuance and experimentation in death metal claims they really want. Brutality? Yeah. Lyrical content that can turn your stomach? Here’s your puke bag. Dan Seagrave cover art that looks perfect on vinyl packaging and T-shirts? Here it fucking is. Comprised of vets from acts as varied as Woe, Pyrrhon, Scarcity, and Gravesend, the band—vocalist Doug Moore, guitarists Matt Mewton and George Paul, bassist John McKinney, and drummer Chris Grigg—this union of the damned kicks your Halloween week off right with deadly power that gets tossed in the dryer with some thrash, coming out a strange color that warps minds. This strikes early, often, and with deadly precision.
“Slaughter the Gerontocrats” blisters as the drums crush, the growls marring as guitars stab with intensity. Maniacal cries lurch while the guitars blow out and crunch, the pace grinding hard to a finish. “Stripmined Flesh Extractor” (note to self: get yours back from the neighbor) is driving and hellish, monstrous growls gurgling, speed igniting as the guitars tangle. The battering chews muscle as the tempo continues to maul, disappearing into a cosmic void. “Freshkills Poltergeist” is channeled and sinewy, guitars mashing as the power bends, simmering in filth, “You should never have come!” Moore wails, the rubbery terror confounding, zany guitars racing into madness. “Sulphrous Winds (Howling Through Christendom)” is heated with the leads charring, the pace punishing every step of the way. Muscular guitars bristle and explode, and gutting power and belching growls drag you over the horrifying finish line.
“Scourged by the Wings of the Fell Destroyer” is relentless, Moore trading off between growl and shriek, amplifying the insanity. The playing speeds up as the leads erupt, thrashing and gutting as the vocals slither into a weird vortex. “The Devouring Dust” destroys, shrieks burning through piles of bone, the pace going for broke as the drums turn everything to dust. The attack gets hungrier and bloodier, the driving force corking through your chest. “Carnage at the Margins” has guitars boiling, the screams upping the ante, and boiling chaos removing flesh from bone. The brutality knows no ends, igniting as unhinged shrieks wreck minds, spiraling synth consuming whole. “Necrobotic Enslavement” bludgeons and enters into a slowly mauling attack, crunching and spattering. Throaty wails leave bruising, and everything around them becomes engulfed in flames before blasting into oblivion. Closer “Death Never Sleeps” is even tempered at first, with the playing remaining channeled but violent, growls dragging into the mud. Guitars flex as the shrieks tread, punchy leads do damage, and everything melts into a horrifying pile of regurgitated skin and bone.
“Death Never Sleeps” is a perfect title for this collection as Glorious Depravity manage to create music that embodies those words as the carnage never fucking stops. This is death metal that dines at the table of the masters, pushing vitriolic sounds and horrific scenery into a record that has no mercy. The Seagrave cover could tell you all you need to know, and then the music itself makes an even better case for why this band’s approach to death metal is both rooted in tradition and totally over the fucking top in the best way.
For more on the band, go here: https://gloriousdepravity-label.bandcamp.com/
To buy the album (U.S.), go here: https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
Or here (Europe): https://eu.tometal.com/
For more on the label, go here: https://tometal.com/
Meat Mead Metal 