Label -Unique Leader Records
Release: 25 February 2022
Words- Chris Fletcher
US death -grind exponents Embryonic Devourment are back with their latest offering ‘Heresy of the Highest Order’, to regale us with more tales of reptilian aliens who drink menstrual blood in order to maintain their human form, and we are here for it. In fact it’s hard to tell what’s more disgusting, the subject matter here or the riffs on offer.
The bands fourth release offers eight tracks of quality death metal that should have fans of bands like Decrepit Birth positively retching with delight. However, this album isn’t just your run of the mill death metal record that is content to stay in one lane and manages to be much more interesting than formulaic.
In fact one of the main strengths of this record is how comfortable the band seem to be in changing things up between tracks as well as within them. Tracks such as ‘Murder of the Ancients’ show off the bands ability to sit on a Cannibal Corpse style groove as good as anyone whilst the title track exhibits how they’re able to bring a change of pace to proceedings and keep you guessing what’s coming next. This is demonstrated brilliantly on standout track ‘Manipulation of the Senses’, which begins with an ominous intro before pounding you with a riff that would make Carcass proud.
The spoken word recordings used throughout the record, most often at the end of tracks, might be a bit much for some people but in truth they are used relatively sparingly and offer a good insight in to the theme of the record, and aside from this, there isn’t really anything to complain about here. When the songs are this good it just makes for a great listening experience.
In order to show off this quality song writing prowess it’s imperative to have a production job that does it justice and thankfully there are no issues in this regard. The production is clean enough to let the band’s obvious talent for this genre standout, whilst leaving enough dirt under the fingernails to give it the grit it really needs to pack a punch. Whether that be the blistering guitar leads and solos, the almost elastic feel of the bass strings or the vocals which manage to be evil enough to fit the rest of the package whilst being clear enough to understand the interesting lyrical content. This three piece have all these elements in place to really cement their spot in a booming death metal scene.
Final track ‘The Lucid Dreamer’ ends with a recording of a woman describing her first reptilian encounter, and this record is one reptilian encounter you don’t want to miss. This is good death metal and so much more. With ‘Heresy of the Highest Order’ Embryonic Devourment have thrown down the gauntlet and when all is said and done, it would be very surprising if this does not end up being one very best death metal albums of the year.
9/10.
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