Carnivore Diprosopus - Madhouse's Macabre Acts (Dan's Crypt; 2006)

Here we have the sophomore album by Colombian slammers Carnivore Diprosopus. Starting the album off is a very well-placed and well-chosen sample of a woman allowing a man entry to what she deems "the madhouse" which is "housing for potential murderers." Pretty fitting given the title. Immediately, the music begins after meshing nicely with the intro and we are treated to ultra-bassy slams with a lot of depth when listened to on headphones. The breakdowns are extremely well-written with good pinch harmonic sections right off the bat. The vocals aren't super guttural, but rather stay in kind of a mid-range guttural sound. So, in essence they're not as brutal as they could be, but I personally like this sound. Halfway in, we get the real treat; another sample, this time one of someone being zapped to a crisp, and we go right back into great slams with almost "gang"-like vocal sections.

I'm honestly quite impressed with this band. This is mature slam done in the traditional Colombian style (straightforward, high tuned snare sound, nice variation in slams like countrymen Suppuration if they were, well, better, to put it quite simply). This far surpasses a lot of the more old-style Colombian brutal death metal. All around you get extremely nice grooves complimented by subtle flourishes of melody all wrapped in a package of great slamming songwriting with nice change-ups from fast to slow and everything in between. Another positive note is the tasteful drumming; Sander knows how to put in the right amount of snare and hi-hat flourishes, and that's a virtue among common brutal death where, often, a drummer will randomly bang on things because he can, or otherwise completely overdo it. None of that here, everything the man does is for a reason, and the reason fits in with the concept of the individual songs.

The entire concept of the album is very good. We will forgive the band for their broken English on some song titles and such just because their slams and general sound are THAT damn good. "Nurse In Cannibals Orgy" begins with just the most kickass fucking slam section I've heard in quite a long time...I love blasting that, seriously...so primitive, so efficient, so damn quality. Some of the samples are kind of off-putting, such as the beginning of "Dancing With My Son's Corpse," which is also coincidentally kind of a weak/weird song title. But it's quickly remedied as they go right into a pulsing section of guitar grooves and fast double kick drumming. The last track, "Apocalyptic Crucifixion" has a very static sounding guitar part in the beginning, sounding almost black metal due to the tremolo style, but not as raw or high pitched; the band always opts for bass-style guitar playing and simplistic chords which sometimes burst with spontaneous technicality similar to the much-loved countrymen Amputated Genitals. And once you get a comparison to them, the review is pretty much over and everyone who wanted to hear something good about the band has just heard it. If you like Colombian death metal and don't have this in some form or another...I think you need to be commited to the madhouse!

-Andy