Autopsy - Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts (2023)

I was a little surprised to see another Autopsy record so hot on the heels of its predecessor, but as a fan of Morbidity Triumphant, I had hopes that this would continue that trajectory of some of their best material since their seminal works in the 80s and 90s. Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts has a title that certainly encompasses so much of what inspires and fuels the band's music, a love of raunchy horror, B-movie stuff of course, some of which have developed into undisputed classics. Autopsy is one of the bands that best translates this into the death metal medium, just by keeping it so sincere and ugly. Well, if I thought the band was going to dilute their quality by releasing too much in too quick a succession, I would have been very wrong, because this record is just as good as the one before it, in fact it's a little better for my money...

Only marginally, though. Ashes... starts off with the amazing, knockout combo of "Rabid Funeral" and "Throatsaw"; two churning, propulsive tunes that totally set a standard for everything to follow. The first tune actually transforms into this great, atmospheric piece at the end, with some awesome bass lines and messy but awesome leads, while the drums groove steadily along and there are all sorts of moans and growls hovering in the distance. The latter just beats the fuck out of you for the entire 2+ minutes. After that they definitely start to diversify the sound a little more, with some chuggy, death/thrashing moments ("No Mortal Left Alive"), some of their classic, semi-stoner death/doom ("Well of Entrails") and some of that deathpunk & roll they've been known for ("Toxic Death Fuk"). Not every tracks is totally off the cuff with regards to memorable riffing, but at the same time, there's nothing here I'd really skip either, the material is consistently engaging, capable of throwing a surprise or two your way, while totally adhering to the conventions the band has put into place since the late 80s on their debut album. 

The production is incredible here, a little brasher than Morbidity Triumphant, but also buries itself into my ears a little deeper. Chris's vocals are a little more focused and less raving mad, but he's still undeniably one of a kind, and the guitars and drums are flawless throughout. I'm going to give special cred to Greg Wilkinson though, his grooves throughout this thing are more noticeable than usual and offer a nice, fat, creepy lower level to the proceedings that gives you added body and dimension. It's not going to win me any cult status/points, but in the months that I've owned it, I think Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts tops Morbidity Triumphant and becomes one of my favorite albums in the entire Autopsy canon. In fact, I think this one even trumps the debut album, I've been enjoying it a lot, and it might just sit under Mental Funeral as one of their best. The production is amazing, the songwriting doubly so, and I won't be surprised if after a few years, this one grows on me even further. Could there be some future Autopsy masterpiece coming? At this rate, maybe by the Fall!

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

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Autopsy - Morbidity Triumphant (2022)

I've gotten a little slack from friends in the past for stating Autopsy has never been one of absolute go-to acts in the death metal field, but I think it gets taken out of context. I've always liked the band, especially those first two albums, and appreciated the uglier, less filtered vision they brought to death metal, which has proven quite important in how many great bands it has influenced. In fact, apart from Shitfun, I think I've liked all of their studio albums, and since their resurgence with The Tomb Within EP, they've maintained one of the more consistent reunion streaks in all of the genre. In the 2020s, we're reaching a point where I'm actually starting to enjoy the material almost as much as the classics, and keep it in mind that this is happening while Chris and other members are busy with various other projects, like Static Abyss, which I might even enjoy more than the output of their mainstay!

Morbidity Triumphant is an aptly named, fun album which captures a lot of the magic of that late 90s to early 90s era, shifting between the gruesome traditional death metal and the passages of groovier riffs that fall more in line with doom or stoner metal. It genuinely feels like a sequel to Mental Funeral, down to how the songs are composed, the vocals are delivered, and to an extent the production, though Autopsy isn't about to turn its collective nose at the few studio advancements that help in its presentation, so it's a little bulkier sounding, with a solid heft to the rhythm guitars that sounds nice and gross when they throw in some more dissonant chords, and an honest, stripped lead tone that really helps deliver the burning and bluesy solos that often vomit forth from the twisted mass below. The drums are fairly simple, but again they have a nice, sincere mix and power to them that helps support the meat of the guitars, and Chris is obviously just as focused on the delivery of the vocals, which is second to none. He's always been one of the most distinct in the field because he understands the suffering and horror that should be inherent in immortalizing this style of music...no overbearing, generic deathcore barking anywhere to be found.

The individual songs don't always blow me away, but there are a few memorable choices like the super groove of "The Voracious Ones", the dreary doom harmonies that inaugurate "Flesh Strewn Temple", or the incendiary grinding deathpunk of "Knife Slice, Axe Chop" which reminds me a lot of some of the stuff they'd been recording for their punkier EPs in recent years. "Skin by Skin" is another standout with that funereal, crawling doom intro that erupts into grinding, blasting death. It's a pretty good variety for Autopsy, one that the layman might ignore, but scratches most of the itches I'm feeling when I'm in the mood to crank one of their albums. Wes Benscoter's cover art is fucking awesome, that robe of stitched faces on the skeleton with the bleeding skull and thorny crown is unforgettable, and I lvoe how one of the guys with the removed face is actually helping stitching it, while another is defleshing more victims! A lot of sick though goes into something like this, and the fact it's in some graveyard and there's a tree upon which other victims are strung is just icing on the flesh-baked cake. He's been doing great for this band for most of their reunion period releases and this is no exception. A good album, right on the border of a great one, and I've probably spun this more than anything since Mental Funeral.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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Autopsy - Live in Chicago (2020)

Live in Chicago isn't Autopsy's first rodeo with a live release, there were a couple put out through the underground imprint Necroharmonic Productions 20+ years ago. Neither of those were really very good, and the others were video tapes, all of which are probably quite hard to find. What I'm getting at, is that we'd never really gotten the 'de facto' official live album from the Californians, and with its great Wes Benscoter cover artwork, an extensive 18 track set, recorded at Reggie's the same year this came, and dropped just before Halloween...this has all the tools and backing to make that happen. Spoiler alert: while the tunes can often come across a little smoother on this recording than the studio albums, I'd say that this accomplishes exactly that feat, and smack dab in the midst of their resurgence which had already been going for a decade.

The vocals and leads do translate quite well here, with Chris' barks and grunts the most gruesome element of the entire performance, as they should be, resonating out over the audience like some gore-preacher tending to his cannibalistic flock. The solos are loud and over the top and definitely add that dimension of the alien and unhinged that we've always felt from their very carnal brand of death metal. Otherwise, the bass and drums sound pretty tight, as do the rhythm guitars, which have a meaty tone themselves, but the latter often sound a little too rounded off and less jagged than they might come across in their uglier, original studio versions. It's no deal breaker, and the whole effort does sound level, but in some ways the band sounds a little less volatile than you might expect. That said, it's a HUGE leap in quality over some of those older live offerings...yeah, they've got more of an underground charm, but this is actually one you could crank on your car or home stereo system and properly feel like you're in a real live environment that wasn't recorded on something like an old tape deck.

The track selection is heavily dominated by tunes from the first two albums, the classics, as you'd predict, so you've got "Severed Survival", "Charred Remains", "Gasping for Air", "Critical Madness", "Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay", "In the Grip of Winter" represented along with several more. There's a cover of "Fuck You!!" closing out the album, from Danny Coralles old band, Cali thrash obscurity Bloodbath, which was kind of fun for its crossover/punk infusion and fun lead explosion. Beyond that, there aren't many choices, so if you were hoping for an infusion of stuff off the last batch of decent albums you'd have been out of luck. "Voices" from Acts of the Unspeakable (also an oldie), "Arch Cadaver" from The Headless Ritual, "Burial" from Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves, and then one new song which would appear on the next studio album to follow this, "Maggots in the Mirror". As much as those first two are still probably my favorites, I wouldn't have minded some more picks from The Tomb Within or Macabre Eternal just for a better balance, but I'm sure the crowd was stoked for all the throwback material and it made perfect sense to keep the set list so thick with it.

All told, Live in Chicago is a solid live effort that I'd easily choose over its predecessors if I'm in the mood, but perhaps one day down the road, in the twilight of their career they'll treat us with some epic 2-3 disc spread that better compiles their whole history on the stage. Until then, I'll enjoy this one.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

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Autopsy vs. Bloodbath EP (2017)

Beyond the fact that the Autopsy vs. Bloodbath split automatically warrants attention for featuring a pair of the genre's hottest commodities, gruesome US legends Autopsy and Swedish all-star retro-death masters Bloodbath, there's a bit more of a gimmick to this 7" in than might first appear. The Californians are covering one of their own member's old bands, also called Bloodbath, and the Swedes are covering the opening track "Blood Bath" off the debut album To the Gory End by the UK veteran death metallers Cancer. It's quick, it's silly, and it's more than likely to be soaked in viscera and rack up the cost of more than a few body bags in the process, and to be frank I rather like this kind of 'creative' vision for a collectors' item, rather than just a band pressing a couple tunes off an album onto 7" for shits and giggles...a practice that has thankfully become scarcer now that sales of vinyl are back in full swing.

Danny Coralles had been with Autopsy for pretty much all its full-length albums and the the vast majority of the band's history, so it's cool to them throwing up a cover for one of his early demo bands, and this one is taken from that Bloodbath's initial 1986 demo Fuck Society. As you might guess it's gnarly, fast-paced crossover thrash but now being given that additional splatter effect from Chris's vocals which probably give it a little more personality than it deserves, because the music for "Fuck You!!!" itself is bog standard and predictable in the rhythm department, with a nice, wild lead attached that is its only saving grace. It's also not quite living up to the horror/slasher elements hinted at by the cover, but this is balanced out by the far cooler Cancer cover by the Swedes and 'Old Nick' Holmes, which is meatier, morbid and ominous in a way that the original only brushed upon. In fact I enjoyed the "Blood Bath" cover more than anything off the band's most recent album of originals, The Arrow of Satan is Drawn. It's dumb, bludgeoning, evil with the little synthesizers, and Nick's voice sounds good and ugly and really drives it through the cemetery ditch.

But that's all there is to it...under six minutes of material, pressed by Peaceville and sent out to the rabid legions of fans, who will probably leave it in the sleeves and plastic as a curiosity to rummage through, and rarely will anyone listen to it. What I personally got out of this is that I'd love to hear Bloodbath record an entire album of old death metal covers, especially if they keep them from the lesser tier acts out of Europe and the US. This one sounds great and I'd urge every fan of the band to at least check it out streaming online somewhere. The cover image is pretty cool too, with that retro slasher vibe but I just don't know that Autopsy's choice even tunes into much thematically, and that gives a slight imbalance to the whole product for me, although I understand how it works into the 'joke' of the release.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www.bloodbath.biz/
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Autopsy - Skull Grinder EP (2015)

When the first tune on your new EP sounds like blistering, vintage Slayer with Chris Reifert vomiting all over it, and coincidentally superior to anything on the latest LP by Slayer themselves, then you officially have my attention. And if Skull Grinder has any defining characteristic at all, it's that it is the most unabashedly primal, old school recording Autopsy have released in this latest era of gruesome productivity since The Tomb Within EP five years ago. I mean, I'm probably not the biggest fan out there of the last three full-lengths. I appreciate them all to an extent, and they do no disservice to my fond memories of Severed Survival, Retribution for the Dead and Mental Funeral, but beyond the loud, abrasive production and obvious personality of the vocals that I enjoy, I just haven't the desire to spin them in any regular rotation these last few years.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my reaction to this material is much the same. I've had fun with it for a few spins, but ultimately the guitar riffs all too rarely go off in interesting directions, and I find myself relying far too much on its attitude and less on the music. They cycle pretty evenly between their death and doom halves, fronting the record with churning proto-death ragers "Strung Up and Gutted" and the title track, and then about half-way through "Children of the Filth" it slows to a crawl. "Sanity Bleeds" is interesting because it's basically an atmospheric doom piece without the drums, so the guitars wail off all over the funereal landscape and some of the vocals take on this heavily sustained, mourning atmosphere, paired up with Chris-snarls. A coupling that provides for the most unique moments of the EP, and signifies a change in tone since the next 13 minutes are all slower in nature and yearn for that same dreary ghoulishness...like chunks of human flesh swaying slowly on meat hooks, measured pendulums of mortality. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since Autopsy are experts at that pace, but it wouldn't have killed the recording to have a little more speed/death in there for added balance throughout.

All very straightforward, carnal and ugly stuff, targeted at the band's built in audience and very unlikely to disappoint them. The instruments sound huge, about to ear themselves from the vinyl onto which they're captured, so even when they're playing the riffs that I'd argue are the most dull (like the bluesy doom near the end of "The Withering Death"), they're still vivid and raucous and making the most sonically out of what is fairly uninteresting. Add to that more of Wes Benscoter's colorful artwork, in line with Macabre Eternal and Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves, and you've got a record which fits in flush with the band's yesteryear classics and the incessant meat-train of their recent output. Not their best material by any means, but if you're reading this you probably already know what to expect, and they do not fuck around with those expectations, but grab them by their throats and drag them all down into their gutter of grime and gore. Consistency with its skin stripped off.

Verdict: Win [7/10] 

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves (2014)

It seems like the further we get into reformation Autopsy, the more the band's records are steadily regressing back to the first material they made their imprint with. So it was with The Headless Ritual, and so too it is with Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves, their 7th overall full-length. Not that this is lamentably generic or lacking much personality. Far from it. In fact, this must be a wet dream for those who'd rather not acknowledge the Californians' output beyond 1992 (or most of death metal, for that matter). But those faint traces of dynamic expansion one might have discovered through Macabre Eternal are all but left by the wayside. Tourniquets... is unabashedly retro, though it avails itself the benefits of current studio wizardry for emphasis on its gruesome, atmospheric mix of vocals and instruments, which is most likely my favorite component of this album and the one area in which it exceeds its two predecessors.

Let me be clear: I didn't wet my sheets over this one, and thus I risk no embarrassment the next time my mother changes them over with the laundry. Tourniquets... is a record I dug for a spin or three, but not one I find myself compelled to reach for time and time again. It's not like Autopsy required yet another reaffirmation of all that they had established over two decades past, but this fills that role nicely, full circle, an orouboros of decayed worm-guts, and much of what you like about this will be what you enjoyed about Mental Funeral and Several Survival. There are at least a half dozen riffs on this thing, like the intro to "King of Flesh Ripped", which I thought were genuinely fantastic...and then a whole lot of other ones that weren't, in particular the doomy death stuff, which seems all too bland, predictable and derivative of about a million other riffs I (and perhaps you) have heard ad nauseum through the decades, and don't really evolve beyond that with the possible exception that they're oft smothered with one of the most wretched and memorable vocalists in the genre.

And I mean that! Chris Reifert is all over this mother fucker like a gang of ghouls whetting their appetites on the local hospital children's ward. His post-T.G. Warrior grunts are on the level, raving and barking corpse-starved lunacy all over the guitars, and in addition they've cleverly layered in a number of rasps and gutturals to create this massive, cavernous sense of intimidation. I liked him so much here that it became mildly easier to forgive the fact that half the guitar progressions bored me nearly to tears. There is so much depth and torment to his growls that it quickly renders anything else in the mix almost pointless, because there's just no way to match this unless you are writing some severely evil, catchy shit, which about 70-80% of the time here they are not, just laconic, sluggish doom steps with mild, mournful harmonization, or nostalgic death metal passages where the last note is all but guaranteed once you've heard the first. Other strong points include the springy, loose guitar tone which lends itself to most of the more compelling riff patterns on the disc, and Reifert's drums which are loud, boisterous, organic, with levels you'd just kill to have in a live setting.

There's the usual sense of variation in how mid-paced death grooves are exchanged with a few faster and slovenly tracks, just like the first two albums (and last two albums). I think they pretty expertly know how to fit the pieces of an album together, even when all those pieces are not ultimately equal in quality. For instance, the opener "Savagery" felt pretty tedious and bare-bones despite its concise length, but they really only use it to generate excitement or "King of Flesh Ripped", one of the best individual songs they've written in the reformation era. Slower, atmospheric, horror-driven pieces will capitalize on the listener's desire for a break after some more intense sequence, and there's absolutely a fleshy sense of novelty to a handful of Cutler and Coralles' performance that I wish had carried through to a broader majority of the songwriting. Again, Autopsy holds the sort of underground status that they could literally record an hour of saws cutting through carcasses at a slaughterhouse and people would find some genius in it, but I felt too evenly a balance of the 'impressed' and 'underwhelmed'.

Honestly, there are probably 15 minutes here, 3-4 tunes which in an EP format would be the most effective material they've released since Mental Funeral and Retribution for the Dead in 1991, so it's not exactly a bust even for me. For many others, who consider them the pinnacle of the medium, this will likely make the end-of-year-list rounds with several triumphs assured. I'm just happy that they still have it within them to create some of the ugliest death metal they know how, and there is no sense of fear or hesitation to channel their grisly essence as far over the top as possible, which is evident through Chris' vocals if nothing else. Compare this to, say, that half-assed new Massacre album, and it seems brilliant by contrast, yet I'm still waiting for the Autopsy record that finally impacts me the way these Californians have inspired so many other death mavens. This is not that year, unfortunately, but to be fair, there are enough glints at grotesque genius here that I certainly still can't write off the possibility of it ever happening. It can. I hope it will.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (the outside world is gone)

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Autopsy - The Headless Ritual (2013)

Whereas its predecessor, Macabre Eternal, was a comeback album wrought with a few new ideas and 'progression' for the Californian cult Autopsy, The Headless Ritual is more of a direct return to the style of Severed Survival and Mental Funeral. Can't say I'm complaining, as those have already remained my favorite in their canon of carnage, but at the same time, though if I was only slightly warm on Macabre Eternal or The Tomb Within EP, I admired that, even after 15 years of studio absence, speculation and the on- and offline accrual of a wider fan base than they ever originally had, this was a band still willing to expand itself and take a few chances, which in conjunction with the rise in popularity of nostalgic death metal aesthetics, really paid off with one of the most buzzed-about revival records in the genre. The Headless Ritual certainly doesn't take as many chances, and thus it's by nature a little 'safer' than its older sibling. Yet, curiously enough, I found myself enjoying this a bit more...

Probably due directly to the fact that my only substantial connection to their music had come and gone by about 1991. Gruesome and timeless, indeed, but Autopsy were just never one of my top tier death metal acts, simply due to the fact that a lot of their doom-dowsed riffs (of which there were plenty) bore the brunt of familiarity with a lot of other Sabbath inspired music, and the faster riffing sequences, while filthy and effective thanks to their production, were just not as impressive and mind blowing for me as Autopsy's more surgical and/or evil sounding contemporaries on albums like Consuming Impulse, Leprosy, Scream Bloody Gore, Symphonies of Sickness, Left Hand Path and Altars of Madness. Personal preferences aside, though, Severed Survival and Mental Funeral have never lost their charnel lustre, and they absolutely deserve their pedestals in the pantheon of festering flesh where they remain. The Headless Ritual pays tribute, and often rises to a similar level of quality, thanks to a superb balance of death and doom riffing progressions, but as loud and capable as its production allots, I can't say that I come away from it feeling as viscera-soaked as I might have when younger.

It's a cleaner record, but that doesn't exempt it from sounding heavy as fuck, especially when they lurch into a morbid groove like "Mangled Far Below", an excellent if mildly predictable fusion of death and doom in which the vile harmonies and writhing, serpentine lead-work really help to balance off Reifert's raving and growling, which frankly sound no less over the top than any of the past album, especially when he angles his inflection upward into a more snarling delivery. A number of the tunes like "Coffin Crawlers" and "When Hammer Meets Bone" are fueled by that same hellish punk foundation one can recall from several of the older albums, but at the same time they don't enjoy the most memorable of chord progressions, simply barreling over the listener like a trolley car full of flailing zombies, while Reifert's grotesque and charismatic microphone spasms steer them up and down the San Fransiscan landscape. There are a handful of surprises here, like the melodic death metal interlude "Thorns and Ashes", which is almost entirely built of Maiden-like guitar harmonies and barked out lyrics, or the closer, "Headless Ritual" itself, which is similar but with more layers of rhythm, but neither is necessarily all that exciting. Interestingly, where The Headless Ritual branches off  towards its most melodic material, I am heavily reminded of Arlington's Deceased. Not a bad thing!

Pacing is meticulous, or I might even say masterful. No two songs in direct succession sound repetitive or redundant, and most are kept concise and centered around only a handful of riffing ideas, with the exception of "Slaughter at Beast House" and "She is a Funeral" which are drawn out largely because they are among the slower, death/doom pieces. There are definitely some bum riffs in there, especially the first few minutes of the latter, but eventually you get some payoff in the bridge. Bass playing is thick but very often follows the rhythm guitars, which are themselves only inspirational about half the time, despite the broad, effective tone. Reifert has no choice but to occasionally feel hokey, since he places so much emphasis on grimy syllables that they tend to fall overboard (nothing new, really). However, the guy's drumming is still among the most organic and natural feeling in the genre, tinny or raw where it needs to be, but feisty as fuck during the more charged segments like the storming early riffs in "Slaughter At Beast House". Lead guitars are probably the most central and adept they've been yet in Autopsy's career, but I will admit that many of the rhythm riffs are sorely lacking in creativity or compelling chord progressions, and they don't often stand out.

I've seen a few individuals butt hurt over the cover artwork, probably because Macabre Eternal had a great color scheme and looked fantastic; but hey, it's better than earlier Autopsy like Acts of the Unspeakable or Shitfun, right? Still, veteran Joe Petagno has had better showings (Angelcorpse's Exterminate, Mammoth Grinder's Extinction of Humanity, and many of his Motörhead covers, for example). I think this one still gets the point across of the ritualistic, occult horror that informs a lot of the lyrics, but some folks probably won't be satisfied until they get another Severed Survival. Ultimately, some people just aren't going to dig on The Headless Ritual much at all, since it doesn't necessarily capitalize on Macabre Eternal so much as it's a regression towards their older works spiced up with a cleaner production and a lot of melody. But for what it's worth, I've had a pretty good time listening through it. Didn't impress me nearly as much as, say, the latest Incantation, or what newer 'old school' bands like Tribulation, Horrendous and Necrovation have been churning out in the past couple years, but I felt satisfied that I paid for an Autopsy record, it sounded much like what I expected off the samples I had heard, and I got some giggles and headbanging out of it. Sometimes that is enough.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - All Tomorrow's Funerals (2012)

Having no love for Peaceville's worthless 2001 Autopsy compilation Torn from the Grave, it was only natural that I might approach All Tomorrow's Funerals with some trepidation. With its grim spin on a popular Velvet Underground song title and a shit ton of familiar looking tracks, I wasn't expecting much value, but thankfully the band itself had a heavy involvement in remastering much of its content, and saw fit to include a few unreleased tracks to bolster its worth to long-term fans who possess the original incarnations of the studio material and weren't exactly begging for a re-issue.

Essentially, the band have reprinted and remastered all of their short form EP releases down through the years, an obvious boon targeted at younger fans who might have difficulty in tracking down the original copies without paying exorbitant prices on auctions or in specialty record shops. They're placed on the disk in a reverse chronological order covering roughly tracks 5-21, so The Tomb Within (2010) is followed by Fiend for Blood (1992) and Retribution for the Dead (1991). Having already covered these releases individually, I will say that I got a lot more out of the Fiend material than anything else in its new format, which sounds a little cleaner while losing little of its repulsive, thick and frivolous Steve DiGiorgio bass or the ghastly, loose-structured sense of fun that it originally conveyed. More interesting by far was the inclusion of the two tracks from the Horrific Obsession single, recorded in 2008 and released early the following year.

As I missed this pair the first time around, I found them a bit of a thrill here, wedged between The Tomb Within and Fiend for Blood. "Horrific Obsession" itself is a crude, bludgeoning gutter-death track with sludgy, pumping bass lines and Reifert's caustic throat dominating the action; "Feast of the Graveworm" one of the best songs I've heard from the band since the first two albums, with freak melodies and grimy, primordial tremolo rhythms that blaze into an excellent, wild breakdown groove beneath the lead. Hell, if half of Macabre Eternal had been this bloody good it might have made my short list for the end of 2011. They've also included a final remastered version of the track "Mauled to Death", which had appeared on their 1987 demo and seen a few re-issues on the comps Awakened by Gore and Ridden With Disease, but is rendered here with an appropriate, ghastly production that matches it to The Tomb Within material in tone, and it sounds absolutely great. "Funereality" from Acts of the Unspeakable has also been shoved into the lineup with a minor mastering facelift.

Even with the obvious love given to the older material, some will want to dive right into the new flesh, and I doubt they'll be disappointed. "All Tomorrow's Funerals" is fast and inspiring, with raw and spring coiled guitars that wend their tremolo hostility over one of Reifert's most abusive performances in history, transforming into a churning groan over the death/doom breakdown that will have all the old morgue crew slamming about their environment like restless, corpses. "Broken People" is nearly as fun, opening with a murderous, muddy charge, lead guitar ablaze and then a gradual devolution into an amazing death/doom bridge with steady, tribal drums that transition into a straight rock beat while the dual, solemn melodies cascade about the track's cavernous breadth akin to classic Paradise Lost circa 1990-'91. "Maggot Holes" has a further focus on the escalating percussion, with a lot of droning, drudging guitars and ringing higher strings that create a brutal hypnosis.

About the only 'new' track I couldn't give a shit for was the closing snippet "Sign of the Corpse", more or less an outro fadeout with some reversed guitars to mark its exit. Otherwise, the lion's share of the content here provides quite the rush, doubly so if you were not previously the owner of the various EPs. If you do, then the overall value of this compilation is slightly diminished. There is something special about experiencing Autopsy in its crude, lewd original form, so I can hardly dub the remasters mandatory, but the new songs are good, Horrific Obsession rules, the original covers are included for you to gaze upon, and it makes for a nice compliment to a collection of the full-length albums, whether you fancy the double vinyl or CD. In fact I feel All Tomorrow's Funerals is probably the best single compilation from the Californian creepers to date.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - The Tomb Within EP (2010)

The Tomb Within might not necessarily live up to the hype this elusive legend has garnered since its career void and the ensuing reunion announcements, but it certainly plants the muddied, time worn boots of Chris Reifert and his joyous band of ghouls directly back into the sodden sepulchral wastes of better years. In a scene of progressively exquisite (oft to the point of inanity) technical arrays of extremity, it was all too obvious that a particular segment of the gore drenched populace would seek to reach back towards the tendrils of morbidity that imbued archaic death metal with such a memorable character.

Autopsy must seem a flagship for this frustrated faction, a band adorned with both the lewd passion and perversions of the old guard and the visceral fiber and versatility to persevere. This was not always the case though, and to some extent the riffs contained on this five track EP would bring back painful flashbacks to some of the less interesting Autopsy records, like the dreadful Shitfun and the mediocre Fiend for Blood EP. I don't care how much of a sacred cow the name brings with it, though, plodding and uninteresting riffs are not virtues for this or any other band, and those releases were wrought of such tedium: The Tomb Within, slightly less so. As a fan of the band's first two LPs and their classic Retribution for the Dead EP, I fortunately found enough satisfaction here that it increased my expectations for this new phase of existence, but not nearly the raving level of admiration I've seen spewed upon its meager, passable rationing.

"The Tomb Within" winds up in scathing feedback before delivering a burgeoning barnstormer of thick, punkish grinding that highlights the band's current level of production, which is honestly not all that different than cranking Mental Funeral a few decades back. I was just not into the riffs during the faster segment, they seemed a little too average, but the lumbering doom of its latter half does somewhat compensate. Most importantly, it reveals Reifert in a fine form, his gravelly tone grating against the sledgehammer, sludgy undertow like some necromantic pariah returned to his old haunting grounds to animate dust and limbs. "My Corpse Shall Rise" is sort of the opposite, opening with an archaic, appreciable death/doom sequence and then tearing into a flustered, flesh-ripping mass for the bridge and lead.

I did enjoy the flailing of "Seven Skulls", and the hardcore grunge and resonant vocals of "Human Genocide", but less so the somewhat tedious finale "Mutant Village". Considering the enormous hype that surrounded Autopsy's return to rights, I admit I expected far more, but this is at least a safe maneuver which plays up to the fans' expectations. There are more intriguing riffing structures on the following full-length, Macabre Eternal, which I've also had a mixed reaction to, but The Tomb Within seems like more of a straight shot to the fundamentals. I wasn't too fond of half the riffs and leads, but at least they got the atmosphere right, and that counts for a lot more than some might give due credit. Cool cover, decent way to kill 20 minutes, but they can and hopefully will have better to offer down the line.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (immortality a fallacy)

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Awakened by Gore (2010)

The inherent value of the Awakened by Gore collection will rest almost entirely on whether one has already acquired the 2000 comp Ridden With Disease that came out via Necroharmonic Productions. Granted, this Nuclear War Now! release is one for the vinyl purists, being released with some spiffy, appropriate artwork on two LPs, with special editions available that include all manner of goodies. It's also more extensive than its predecessor, with 13 tracks opposed to the 9 there, but I can't say that the audio extras offer much of an incentive, just crude rehearsal tracks that in no way supplant their ultimate, ideal studio incarnations.

If you haven't guessed, this is a re-pressing of the Californian band's original demos from 1987-88, before they had gone to Peaceville for the classic Severed Survival. As I mentioned on my writeup for Ridden With Disease, the demos offer a crude and fun interpretation of several album classics and a few that never really made it to one of their bigger albums. Expect a distinct but downtrodden demo production, but Autopsy manage to pull it off with their grimy, proto-death compositions and atmosphere, both traits having now gone on to influence countless shadow acts who cite Chris Reifer's creature as legendary. Alas, the raunchier rehearsal material like "Disembowel" or "Embalmed" are really only needed if you're the sort of person that would purchase Michael Jackson memorabilia or some super model's used lingerie on eBay. Necessary only to the obsessive.

If you do NOT own Ridden With Disease, and you love your vinyl double LPs or other such releases that provide you with a taste of nostalgia, then this is the paramount release of the demos. Otherwise, Necroharmonic already took the initiative on this a decade earlier (with Hammerheart/Vinyl Collectors releasing an LP of that album). I'm ranking this slightly lower due to the whole egg before chicken novelty, but if you're a sucker for records, then consider this the chicken before the egg that grew into that chicken. Both will inevitably be rare enough that just finding one of the two should suffice.

Verdict: Win [6.5/10]

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Dead as Fuck: Live in 91+93 (2004)

What potential use one gets out of Dead as Fuck will really depend on just how obsessed with California's cavern dwellers one truly is, for its little more than a combination of two previous Autopsy live recordings, one 'official' and the other not. This is the third collection for this particular band through Necroharmonic Productions, and it is 50% a repress of the Tortured Moans of Agony live album (1998), recorded in New Jersey. If you missed the chance to acquire that limited release, the material has been remastered here, and in terms of sound its preferable. I have previously reviewed that record, and found it not much to my liking, so it hardly provides an impetus to rush out and acquire this fan package.

The rest of the content is culled from a bootleg album called Live from the Grave, which was recorded in San Pedro, California in 1991, thus giving the listener a glimpse of a slightly earlier Autopsy (Tortured Moans' performance was '93). The actual sound quality once again leaves something to be desired, with a noisier overall clamor than the Tortured Moans session, which have a coiled if repressed power and punch to them, but the two are comparable enough that listening straight through will not throw anyone off. What's more the bootleg set contains a number of tracks that weren't present for Tortured Moans: "Severed Survival", "Hole in the Head", "Service for a Vacant Foffin", "Enbalmed", and "Robbing the Grave" all turn up here, with a few redundancies ("Fiend for Blood", "Charred Remains", "Torn from the Womb").

Still, I don't really feel like this is a definitive live experience mandatory for the band's fans. One should absolutely select this over Tortured Moans of Agony itself, but otherwise cross your fingers for some live mega-package in the near future (such things usually accompany reunions). Scraps of this material have appeared elsewhere (i.e the Torn from the Grave comp through their main label, Peaceville), but if you seek an hour of straight, uninterrupted primal death from Chris Reifert's cult favorite, it's pretty much going to be this or the Dark Crusade DVD. Dead as Fuck is hardly flattering, but it's genuinely ferocious.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Macabre Eternal (2011)

It was difficult to deliberate as to whether Macabre Eternal is more of a relief or a disappointment, but I'm settling for a little of each. Truly one of the single most anticipated offerings of the death metal genre in 2011, it's the first Autopsy long form in 16 years, or 19 if I can exclude Shitfun (and believe me, I'd love to). In the interim, the band's popularity has not only maintained, but seen an exponential increase. I'll be frank with you, there were not nearly enough folks singing this band's praise back in the late 80s, early 90s (I'm not sure if there was much comprehension or tolerance for Reifert's cunning and crude aesthetics at that time), so it's been refreshing to see them come to life through the years, new generations lavishing praise upon their classics Severed Survival and Mental Funeral.

This is not necessarily the band's 'comeback', since they squeaked out a single and EP in the past few years, the latter of which built my own bloodied expectations to a fine froth. I'm happy to report that there are no redundancies here with either of those releases. Macabre Eternal is a brand new, full-length Autopsy with a number of strengths and weaknesses all unto itself. The artwork is stunning and appreciable (excepting perhaps the logo/title coloring), the production the most bold and bright of any of the band's works to date, and there's a renewed sense of creativity in the writing that I had not expected. Sure, there are nods here or there to the band's formative backlog, and this album thankfully abandons the sludgier, forgettable drivel they churned forth in the mid 90s, but I was surprised that it's no mere product of derivation. So, for instance, you might hear the early Sabbath meets early Death that you expect from the first two records and their moderately death/doom leanings, but even these slower manifestations possess much versatility.

Unfortunately, I found that there were treacherously few songs that truly stuck out to me as I kept listening through Macabre Eternal. "Dirty Gore Whore" is certainly counted among the winners, with its zippy and explosive verse guitars and its torn throat narrative. Fast paced, fluid and original, I enjoyed this from beginning to end, both the searing and wah-wah pedaled leads that transition into the jarring tension of the bridge. Also unexpected was the 11+ minute epic "Sadistic Gratification" which explores perhaps the widest contrasts and emotional range of any Autopsy tune to date. The slower, instrumental doom sequence that inaugurates this track is truly something to behold, culling back to the Retribution for the Dead material if it were more melodic and distinct, parsing from surprising tranquil bliss to jaw crushing force and then back again, once again in vocals that tell a story. I especially loved the trade off between the female screaming and the menacing mockery near the climax of the song (around 9:30 in).

Then there is the rest of the album, which, while 'good enough' never really settled in memory outside of a few scattered riffs. Straight, groovier death/doom pieces like "Always About to Die", "Sewn Into One" and "Seeds of the Doomed" rollick along with a rank, ritual effluvia, but they seemed rather predictable, while the bouncier "Born Undead" maintained its charismatic vocal slather at the expense of its rather mediocre notation. Others are more concentrated and complex, such as the accelerated miasma of "Deliver Me from Sanity" or "Hand of Darkness", with its Leprosy-like rhythm beneath the lead, but they still feel like they're missing that one, inspirational guitar that would force them over the top like their betters here. Perhaps the one constant of quality here is that of the vocals, vintage Reifert with perhaps a hint of influence from Necrophagia's Killjoy (not unwelcome).

The album is not nearly so menacing nor malevolent as Severed Survival and Mental Funeral, but then, that's from the perspective of one inundated with about 20 years of cloying and grisly death metal since hearing such cult fare, and certainly one could not expect their equivalent. However, Autopsy is a band I do turn to for the atmosphere they curry in spite of their lewd primacy, and I feel that in that department, it falls short of even Acts of the Unspeakable. This is more of a clean, theatrical Autopsy prepared to take all comers with a more brazen variety of their old school riffing, and also cite innovation where it can, but too often succumbing to a filler mentality amidst the better elements of the songwriting. A decent album, I think, but not quite measuring up to its preemptive tendrils of vaporous decay, the carrion cloud of cult comforts it drifted in on.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/autopsyofficial

Autopsy - Torn from the Grave (2001)

Tyler Durden really had it right, didn't he? Selling the ass fat off rich old women back to them as soap? So too did the record industry of the emergent 21st century, cashing in on 80s and 90s death metal gems, much as the RIAA and its constituents and predecessors had done for the past 30+ years in rock, pop, and other mainstream musical outlets. The old 'Greatest Hits' fiasco, riding high to bait a new millenium of suckers. Californian godfathers of the grotesque Autopsy had been yet untouched by this mass scam, having only had a few discs of unreleased material (demos, live gigs) put out through the imprint Necroharmonic, but it was only a matter of time before Peaceville would realize they were sitting on a goldmine in the band's back catalog, and Torn from the Grave would be torn from the archives, packaged in some thrifty cover art and foisted upon the masses who by this point might damn well have grown tired of Abscess and desired their beloved carrion eaters Autopsy back in their authentic incarnation.

I would have loved to think Chris Reifert and crew were above this sort of treatment, the icons of the underground that they've always been, loyal to a fault, but alas, their 'Greatest Hits' arrived. Like Obituary's Anthology, this is admittedly a substantial collection with 27 tracks and 71 minutes of material, but 22 of these are lifted straight off the studio releases through Peaceville (1989-1995). Most were culled from the four full-lengths, with Mental Funeral getting the royal treatment of six selections ("Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay", "Fleshcrawl", "Slaughterday", "Torn from the Womb", "Dark Crusade" and the title track), and the others all getting about 4-5 each. Yes, even Shitfun has been represented ("Brain Damage", "Blood Orgy", "Bowel Ripper" and "Humiliate Your Corpse"), but this is thankfully at the end of the disc so you could stop early if you did not want to once again exposure yourself to its underwhelming content. The band's earlier EPs are also given proxy here: the title track from Retribution of the Dead, the title track and "Squeal Like a Pig" from Fiend for Blood, so no gravestone is left unturned from the band's 'official' discography of the period.

The selections are decent, I suppose, but utterly worthless to anyone who already owned the original recordings. As I've said many times though for similar collections by other bands, the few and the proud Autopsy fans (this was before the band's massive internet popularity resurgence in the 21st century) were very likely to have most of them, even the EPs which had been included on CD re-issues of Severed Survival and Acts of the Unspeakable. For these begrudged stalwarts, the value of Torn from the Grave must lie in its alternate recordings and live treats, no? The "Robbing the Grave" and "Shiteater" performances included here (from California and New Jersey, respectively) are also available on the Necroharmonic live compilation Dead as Fuck (2004), with many more, so they're easy to skip here in favor of a more solid experience. The other performance track, "Service for a Vacant Coffin" from Germany in 1990, is decent, but probably also available on a CD re-issue or bootleg. "Ridden With Disease" is included from the Critical Madness demo (1988), but then you can get both of the band's demos on the comp of the same name (Ridden With Disease) that was already issued. That leaves "Funereality", which is listed as from the Vol 4 Peaceville compilation, but is also on Acts of the Unspeakable...

So you can sort of see where this is going. Nowhere. Another sanctimonious waste of scratch being peddled 'because it can be', to pad pockets and be forever consigned to used record bins or the unstirred shelves of collectors, buried in dust. Not even this sacred cow would be exempt from such molestation, and I'd highly recommend that it be forgotten, and that the Autopsy aspirant, the most likely candidate to be pulled under this rug, spend his coins on the band's first three albums, and welcome himself to manhood.

Verdict: Epic Fail [1/10]

http://www.myspace.com/autopsyofficial

Autopsy - Ridden With Disease (2000)

There were a number of Autopsy compilations throughout their lengthy hiatus, from several imprints, but most of these are sadly the expected wastes of money and time. If there's one noted exception, then it would be Ridden With Disease, release at the turn of the century through Necroharmonic (who did a number of these). I say this for the sole reason that this is nothing more than a collection of the legendary band's first two demos. Demos that the average fan fluent in their full-lengths and EPs of the 90s might damn well not own a copy of. Demos that such fans SHOULD want a copy of, as the rather crude death/thrash acts being committed upon them sound absolutely as pungent and bludgeoning to these ears as they ever had...

Both the 1987 demo and Critical Madness are included in their original, gut-wrenching glory. The latter is perhaps less valuable, since the contents ("Charred Remains", "Ridden With Disease" and "Critical Madness") itself were also recorded on the debut Severed Survival in 1989, and all sound better there. These original demo mixes are pretty rough around the edges, rougher at least than the first demo, which is the better of the two. You probably know the eerie, twisting track "Embalmed" which sounds nearly as eyeball popping and evil here as the ensuing studio full-length, but what of the intense, crushing barrage of "Human Genocide", which seems like a hardcore alternative to old school Death (Scream Bloody Gore). Or the Repulsion propulsion of "Stillborn", which is incredibly fucking awesome. Perhaps the worst tune on the demo was "Mauled to Death", but if you enjoy stuff like "Zombie Ritual", or the first song here "Human Genocide" then it's still worth hearing.

Added to this are a pair of live recordings of "Severed Survival" and "Service for a Vacant Coffin", and whilst neither sounds particularly impressive, there's an authentic raw appeal that trumps the Tortured Moans of Agony recordings. Now, some of the material found here is available on later compilations or bonus discs to remastered albums, but I kind of like the cover art, it suits Autopsy well, and honestly I prefer collections like this which gather up demos that I'm unlikely to ever land my fingers upon in their original format (not that I care much for tapes these days anyway). If you're a fan of their style and don't mind an even lewder and cruder glimpse into their past, then this is the one non-studio album/EP in their catalog that is worth a purchase.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/autopsyofficial

Autopsy - Tortured Moans of Agony EP (1998)

One of the earlier recordings through Necroharmonic Productions, Autopsy's Tortured Moans of Agony was a double 7" inch release that gave most of the interested populace their first experience with the California scumbags in the live setting. Well, at least if they could actually find this, or cared about a posthumous limited vinyl in the 90s. Taken from a 1993 live gig at Bonnies Roxx in New Jersey, it's only got about eight songs, divided pretty evenly across their back catalog, but despite the muddled sound quality and the inclusion of a few less desired stinkers in the track list, it's honestly not all that bad if you're a fiend for limited press gems.

Of course, this was recorded before the truly lacking Shitfun hit the market, so thankfully only one track from that album ("Shit Eater") winds up here, just as boring as the studio incarnation. But otherwise, they cover a lot of their classics, namely the godless tumult of "Charred Remains" (Severed Survival); and a worthy quintent from their excellent sophomore Mental Funeral, consisting of "Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay", "Fleshcrawl/Torn from the Womb", "Dead" and "Slaughterday", the last of which is my single favorite here, delivering a grisly and doomed depth despite the clamor of the relatively poor recording quality. Rounding out the selection is "Death Twitch" from Acts of the Unspeakable, and "Fiend for Blood" from the mediocre EP of the same name. The former is appropriately abominable and disgusting, the latter gone in about 30 seconds, before the eerie, rushed melodies can probe any reaction from the audience.

It's important to note that this is not the entire set of the performance, so Tortured Moans of Agony feels a bit half-assed other than something to foist upon collectors. This is sort of an official bootleg. If you're interested, Necroharmonic would later release the Dead as Fuck comp which contains the entire gig as well as the earlier Live from the Grave bootleg in one package. I'd advise any party interested in the music to pick that up instead, but ultimately I can't say that the consistency of the recording holds up to scrutiny. Too much thundering tripe in the mix, and nothing I'd actively seek out when the studio incarnations are so massively superior.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Shitfun (1995)

Well it IS shit, but it ain't so fun. Autopsy's 4th album might be a meager half-truth in advertising, but it's not at all surprising when one considers past tangents (the Fiend for Blood EP) or the direction the band was leaning towards with Acts of the Unspeakable. Punk and sludge had become the dominant flavor in the band's developing devolution, and while there are fewer aesthetic differences in the lyrical concepts of Shitfun to its predecessor, it does feel as if the spade wielding, festered cemetery caretaker of the California crew's formative years had been supplanted by a gaggle of delinquent trailer park pukes who think its fun to eat poop and explode frogs with firecrackers or what the fuck ever to pass the empty days.

This distinction is largely musical, as the lyrics offer the same mix of rambunctious annoyance and a more methodic, ghastly obsession. Reifert continues to communicate with a balance of his early gutturals and splattered punk narrative, but even when he's pinching a groan out it does not seem to have the same effective power as Mental Funeral or Severed Survival. Shitfun has 21 tracks on it, and in my opinion that's about 13 or 14 too many, because as hard as it might be to believe, there are some atmospheric moments amidst the slovenly coprophilia that manifest the creepy overtones of the past, in such installments as "Humiliate Your Corpse" or the slow, drudging "Praise the Children". "Blood Orgy" and "Maim Kill Maim Rape" both have a bouncing crepitation to them which proves worthwhile, but the majority of the tracks are laden in wholly forgettable punkish or dull proto-doom slop that immediately exits brain left. Songs like "Shit Eater", "Geek", "Bathe in Fire", "I Shit On Your Grave", "An End to the Misery" and so many others have about 5-10 seconds of plausible but effortless creativity that offer only a fraction of this band's net worth from the older albums.

Shitfun really feels like a band bored out of its mind, but not so mindless of its audience that it would abandon its prior dynamics entirely. There is a pretty good reason for this: Autopsy had already decided to call it quits, and transition into their new incarnation Abscess. The material here is little more than a transitional galleria of grotesque odds and ends that would not have complemented the value of either Acts of the Unspeakable or Seminal Vampires and Maggot Men. A depot for half-formed ideas. A clutter gutter. A heavily swollen contract filler with no ambition other than soaking in its own bodily fluids and stinking up its environment. Honestly, I'm amazed that this album doesn't 100% suck, but at the same time I'm glad that the members had realized their interests lay elsewhere and cut the lifeline before releasing something even more sill than this. These days, we have Autopsy back doing what they do best, so it's kind of difficult to hold a grudge over this misstep, but of the 55 minutes here there are only 10-15 not worth an immediate flush down the the maw of the nearest porcelain deity.

Verdict: Fail [4/10] (no funeral, no fear, no remorse)

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Acts of the Unspeakable (1992)

After the sloppy frolics of the Fiend for Blood EP, I worried that Autopsy's devotion to increasing primacy might have surpassed their better judgment, that the band would have decided to fuck around so for an entire album. Not that the EP was necessarily awful, it was...interesting, but as a big fan of Mental Funeral and Severed Survival, I was silently praying that some order might be restored. Turns out that my concerns were unjustified, and the band's third full-length Acts of the Unspeakable delivered on most of the same counts as its predecessors. There is definitely a ruddy sludge and grind motif tunneling beneath the material here, but they have compensated with enough vile, doomy riffs that the album can still deliver a few shivers.

One other minor change I noticed was in Reifert's vocals, which had taken on a stranger, almost conversational tone as opposed to the growling of the past. Where before he was the stuff of nightmare, a catacomb dweller gurgling guts through his primitive prose, he had here become the butcher's uncle, sitting on the porch out front of the slaughterhouse and reminiscing on the flanks he's carved, or the 'accidents' he's seen in his carnal surroundings. The production is not really up to snuff with Mental Funeral, so that was a minor distraction. The guitars simply don't carry the same coiled power through this mix. However, it lends a more spacious atmosphere like dust shifting through the air of a murder scene, curtains of descending, solemn doom. You'll also notice the increased amount of tracks here, 18 in all...and only two ("Your Rotting Face" and "Pus/Rot") manage to escape the 3 minute limit. Most are between 1-2:30 in length, so they're hurling less at you, but they manage to range themselves across a number of faster, slower and mid-ranged dynamics, so it's not some mindless grind record. The cover art is noticeably more abstract, but I still kind of enjoy it.

Personally, I find some of the more contrasted tracks here to be among the strongest. Opener "Meat" is quite good, with creepy guitar drawls that explode out into faster paced butchery, only to arrive at a very Demilich-like central rhythm. "Necrocannibalistic Vomitorium", which wins the song title award here ("Ugliness and Secretions" and "Battery Acid Enema" vying for the silver medal), offers a similar shift between doomed evil and a fast break, with some morbid, echoing lead work tucked in there. Other favorites include "Voices", a rather standard burst of muddied deathgrind with some fibrous, quality notes under its gore soaked eaves; "Funereality" for the atmosphere conjured through the warlike necrosis of the drumming; and for the sheer savagery, perhaps "Orgy in Excrements". "Skullptures" just rules, period. Most of the others here just seem to channel straight in one of my ears like carnivorous maggots and then straight out the opposite orifice, stopping for only a few bites of my brain. But they never breach protocol, so the album is a consistent, 35 minutes of splatter.

Autopsy had not thrown in the towel quite yet (don't worry, it's coming), but the Acts of the Unspeakable have nothing over their precursors other than a quantity > quality aesthetic. The landscape behind the band was beginning to change. Grunge, punk, sludge and other forms of primate brutality had gained viable ground, and it feels like Reifert and company were beginning to explore that direction rather than the sepulchral menace that they once shared with Death and Obituary around the turn of the decade. This change would ultimately manifest in the members' later band Abscess, but hints were being dropped well in advance, arguably through the subtext here. This is not at all the go-to album when I'm in the mood for Autopsy's lewd, unhinged, cryptic pungency, but it's not a huge decrease in quality.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (only bones are left)

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Fiend for Blood EP (1991)

Much as the Retribution for the Dead EP served as a tonal bridge between Autopsy's first pair of albums, Fiend for Blood offered another window into the band's plausible future. The material here is a lot sloppier and unhinged than Mental Funeral, much more a barrage of straight, grisly death with a few breakdowns. Steve DiGiorgio returned to the bass position here, and you can hear his excess noodling all over the songs, a much more central presence than the restraint he showed through the debut album. One the one hand, Fiend for Blood is simply 12 minutes of neolithic torture, with nary a truly memorable hook to be unearthed, and it's the worst release of the band's crucial 1989-1992 period. On the other, there's really nothing all that offensive about it, just don't expect depth outside of Steve's copious, spastic embellishments.

As with Mental Funeral, there are a few very brief tracks here, but these at least carry some vocals. "Fiend for Blood" is a hurried little 30 second, sludgy grind track while "A Different Kind of Mindfuck" returns to a 'narrative' doom not unlike a few of the tunes on the prior two releases. "Dead Hole" is one of the better discoveries, cycling through a savage opening barrage and then stretching its offal stained wings with some swerving, atmospheric grooves. "Ravenous Freaks" is overall forgettable, with one half-decent riff in the center, the guitars colliding with the bass in a favorable pattern, then another burst of worthless insanity, and then another half-baked but pleasurable death groove. "Squeal Like a Pig" establishes a more measured pace throughout, while "Keeper of Decay" features perhaps the best of the EP's faster rhythms, DiGiorgio going fruit loops everywhere.

Aside from the admitted lack of quality riffs that I was so into on Mental Funeral, I also don't enjoy the tone here of the guitars. It simply does not stand out whatsoever. Contrast these droning, sludgy patterns with the thundering bottom end, and it all feels fairly half-assed, as if the band just wanted to fill some space before their next album. The cover art also sucks, where Retribution for the Dead was quite cool; but it's not like many bands put much effort into the packaging of such short form releases. Assuming you haven't already picked this up in the past, then I'd advise you just pick up the re-issue of Acts of the Unspeakable which includes this entire EP as a bonus (and more on one of the versions). Autopsy's third album does continue the wacky trend of dumbing down their impressive sarcophagi of sound, but there are far better songs and less of the bass playing excess.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (my lips pressed to your laceration)

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Mental Funeral (1991)

Anthropological, metallurgical studies can often reveal interesting traits that slipped through my attention, and one of these is to observe trends within particular movements and scenes. To that extent, I have to credit Californians Autopsy for their predilection towards some of the most lewd, disgusting death metal in history, well in advance of the present tendencies. Here in the 21st century, it's become 'cool' again to delve into the primitive extremity minus the technical wizardry in which the 'other half' live, but Chris Reifert and his troupe had already decided on this path 20 years ago to date. Mental Funeral leans in a wholly opposite direction to artists like Pestilence or Death, whose goals were to transcend the brutality of their roots, or transport them on a generational starship into the unknown.

Both were noble enough ambitions, and Autopsy clearly succeeded in their own. Mental Funeral is a grisly incantation of carnal death and doom that marks the pinnacle of their career, and while it's perhaps not the most perfect of albums I've heard, it's consistent with the debut while at the same time surpassing it. Once again, the guitar tone is incredible, feeling as if it was hewn from the same wood as the axe of a murderous hillbilly psychopath, full of painful grains that churn beautifully against the organic flow of the percussion, but also taut in the execution of the groovy, verminous leads. Just as much of a case could be made for Mental Funeral as a doom metal classic as death, because a large portion of the material crawls along like a convocation of Pentagram, Black Sabbath and old school Paradise Lost. As I mentioned, this is in no way an 'evolution' of Autopsy's sound, but in fact a devolution, as if the band couldn't get enough grave soil and thus decided to dig a cemetery within another cemetery.

But they also evoke a fair share of variation throughout the track list that ensures the primacy of the material will never bore the listener. Personally, I was not a huge fan of the three shorter vignettes here. "Bonesaw" is a brutal burst that would have been better manufactured into a full-length track. "Mental Funeral" itself a haunting outro with some clean guitars, that also would have been appreciated were it expanded. "Fleshcrawl" is another instrumental doom guitar sequence that serves as a decent intro for "Torn from the Womb", but independently it's not the bees knees. That said, the core songs here are almost without exception incredible. "Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay" is a writhing, hardcore/death pounder in the vein of Sweden's Entombed, while "In the Grip of Winter" expands upon the doom and groove of the previous year's EP Retribution for the Dead, possessed of some evil, repulsive morbidity to die for. This aesthetic is actually taken one further with "Hole in the Head", one of my favorite Autopsy tracks hand down for its swaggering, restless melodies.

Elsewhere we find the drudging monstrosity that is "Slaughterday", with Reifert flexing his lungs in resonant patterns of true disgust. "Destined to Fester" is another of the band's timeless and catchy death/doom pieces, with a lot of groove to it that creates a dire and welcome mirror to the eminent, emerging grunge and doom scenes of the 90s. "Dark Crusade" is a straight rager not unlike "Twisted Mass...", with incredibly churning and thick guitar tones that alternate between a grinding, d-beat momentum and neanderthal breakdowns. "Dead" might as well be a mere instrumental for all the few vocal lines we are granted, but it's another slow, methodic crusher. About the only song I don't drool over here is "Robbing the Grave". The vocals are in fact exceptional, but despite the hypnotic drum beat, I just found the guitar riffs here to be overall lacking. That said, it does not cock up the overall experience.

Once again, we've got an album that has transformed into a virtual recycling bin of ideas. I must hear half a dozen demos and albums each week from younger artists trying to pull this off. Not that Mental Funeral is necessarily innovative on its own, but the grimy production was quite a novelty in its day. Stylistically, Autopsy were heavily favoring their doom forefathers, but they were also starting to distinguish themselves here from bands like Death and Obituary which were comparable to the debut Severed Survival. Sure, you'll still hear parallels in this, but they are marginal at best. Again, this is not a band whose albums melt my flesh off like various other fundamental classics. I don't admire the songwriting quite so much as a Left Hand Path, Cause of Death, Realm of Chaos, Leprosy, Consuming Impulse or Altars of Madness. But regardless, this is a band who produced a block of brutally reliable output when the genre was at its most fresh and inviting, and Mental Funeral belongs in any exhumation of classic ideas. Whenever I'm seeking out an effective, sepulchral atmosphere in death metal, I know just where to find it.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (the safety of the womb is gone)

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Autopsy - Retribution for the Dead EP (1990)

Most will have likely experienced the Retribution for the Dead EP on one of several CD issues of the Autopsy debut Severed Survival, but it was actually quite a ghastly and sufficient filler between the band's first pair of albums. Here, Chris Reifert and company pursue more of a direct death/doom hybrid, not at all an unexpected deviation from the slower breakdowns present on Severed Survival, and simultaneously setting up the caveman atmosphere of their superb sophomore album. I'd also mention that I love the cover art to this EP, more so than anything else the band have ever released. I almost wish the band had pursued further aesthetics like this on subsequent output.

There are three songs here, each a sordid amalgamation of Autopsy's barbaric death and doom motifs that feel like slow motion beatings with a toothed, blood encrusted cudgel. "Retribution for the Dead" opens with a glaze of pure Sabbath, then a forceful sludge as Reifert's vocals take a spin further away from the Schuldiner-like growling prevalent on Severed Survival, towards a more hoarse and unkempt tone of tortured despair. Around 1:45 the song adopts a dour, melodic drudge akin to Paradise Lost via Lost Paradise, a natural Peaceville connection. "Destined to Fester" gathers a comparable gloom before the war toms interrupt, then a wailing guitar line is affixed to the central, slug-like chords, almost like Grief jamming with Trouble. Speaking of the latter, the third and final "In the Grip of Winter" opens with swagger grooves before devolving into a mire of slow, muted chugs, then back to even more intense groove cycles. Gotta love the vocals on this one, and it serves as another glimpse into the future (i.e. Abscess). The cleaner, doomed guitar breakdown that leads into the final, bluesy excess is also quite good.

My taste in Autopsy is largely confined to the 1989-1992 period, and Retribution for the Dead is just another reason why. Like most of their releases, the guitars are never all that creative or exhilarating, instead relying on tried and tested patterns but delivering them with crippling, raw authenticity. The Californians have never shied away from their death/doom girth, traces were evident on the debut and certainly on its successor, but regardless this EP seems to offer a foul window into what might have been had the band chased this dragon on a narrower path. The tracks are morbid and swallow all hope, the lyrics retaining their primitive necrotic obsession. In the end, its one of my favorite recordings from the band, whether or not its been relegated to footnote status over the long term.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/