Reviews
God Among Insects: World wide death
03/05/04 || Statik Majik
Yes, you got it. It´s another death metal album from Sweden. I´d like to emphasize those two words. No, not “Sweden” or “another”, no. “Death metal” is what I´m referring to here, fuckers. I can´t stress out those words enough on this review, but I’ll try. Lord knows I´ll try.
So you´re probably thinking this is a somekind of early 90´s Swedish deathmetal clone trying to sound like Dismember or Entombed? And if so, this fucker has to be recorded in Sunlight Studios with Tomas Skogsberg, right?
You couldn´t be more wrong.
Imagine the groove from early 90´s Obituary. Yes, you heard me, the fucken groove. Don´t tell me you never heard Obituary, or even worse, the groove in their music? Well, they did have it. Really, they did. Don´t believe me? Well, I have two fucken words for you: Allen fucken West. Anyway, take this groove I´m talking about, do it the modern way, then add some low fucken growling by one of the best growlers of all times, and you got the death metal coctail of 2004, also known as God Among Insects. The fact that this album is recorded and mixed damn well makes it an even better experience. Drums, bass, vocals, guitar. You hear them all, and they don´t get blurred into each other.
The way I like my death metal.
I fucken love the guitarsound of this album. I´m sorry to say, but I´m one of those geezers who don’t get a hard-on from the Dismember/Entombed early 90´s guitarsound. If I´d had to pick out one guitar sound from the early 90´s album, I´d pick the sound from “Osculum obscenum” by Hypocrisy, or “World demise” by Obituary. That´s the sound I enjoy. Well, the sonic assault K. Philipson releases from his Jackson is even better. I´m talking downfuckentuned guitar onslaught here. If his guitarring in The Project Hate is familiar to you, you have no trouble in believing my words. Downfuckentuned. Death Metal. Keep those words in mind, will you?
One of the main reasons why I anticipated this album so much was to hear Masse´s vocals. Death fucken metal vocals at it´s best. Growls, not the shrieks/screams he´s know for doing in Dark Funeral nowadays. Well, there´s few screams here and there, mainly in the background just to add spice to the mix, but you probably get the picture. As we all know, he had a low fucken voice/growl on the first two Hypocrisy albums. You did know that, right? Right. It was a voice I actually thought he couldn´t ever top. Fortunatelly I was proven wrong last year with the “Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate” album by The Project Hate, where he does some backing vocals. But that was merely a warm up for the work ahead, which was about to be “Word Wide Death”. You will fucken shit your pants when you hear his performance on this album. Just wait until you hear him pronounce for example the lines “Uhr-Nazuur” from the same track. A fucken “hrrrrrr nasrrrrrrrrrr”, if you ask me. Yes, you got it, we´re talking almost Chris Barnes-low. With the exception that Masse´s vocals are more energetic and sound more alive than Barnes´ vocals will ever do.
You might wonder why I haven´t mentioned for example the drums that much. Is there something wrong with them? Hell no, Tobben does more than amazing job delivering top notch death metal drumming. But I promise you, the very second someone tells you that this album was recorded at Abyss Studios, you might start to think about the triggered drumsound of certain norwegian blackmetal band. Am I right or am I righ? Well, don´t even go there. And I fucken mean it. The fact that “World Wide Death” is recorded at Abyss just means that it´s recorded in damn good studio with professionals. And that´s it. Take my word, the album sounds, smells and tastes like what it is. Motherfucken death metal played by long time professionals in swedish death metal scene.
So, if there would be death metal that makes you want to shake that booty like the bitches at MTV, this one would be it ( I´m fucken thinking the opening riff/double bass of “Purified in Carnage” ). But since ass-shaking isn´t considered as a crucial element of metal, you might want to stick with the headbanging and throwing up the horns. This album is more than perfect for that.
Give me “Scars of the crucifix” by Deicide and “World wide death” by God Among Insects and I say that´s all the death metal I need for 2004.
Just in case I didn´t use the following words in this review yet, here I go:
“Death”, “metal” and “downtuned”.
That´s what this album is all about.
8,5 /10
- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Threeman Recordings
- Website: www.godamonginsects.se
- Band
- Emperor Magus Caligula: vocals
- Lord K. Philipson: guitar
- Tomas Elofsson: bass
- Tobben Gustafsson: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Legions of Darkness
- 02. A Gush of Blood
- 03. Headless Nun Whore
- 04. Wretched Hatching
- 05. Chainsawed Christians
- 06. Purified in Carnage
- 07. Uprising of the Rotten
- 08. Severe Facial Reconstruction
- 09. Uhr-Nazuur
