Dead for Ten Weeks - Bloodline Detriment (Unmatched Brutality; 2007)

Despite their rather checkered history, Unmatched Brutality have releases a fair amount of good brutal death metal, most recently the very good debut of Orchidectomy. Back in 2007 they released Bloodline Detriment the debut full-length of Gulfport, Mississippi's Dead for Ten Weeks. Taking their name from Devourment lyrics (Choking on Bile to be specific), Dead for Ten Weeks play a very evil sounding mix of most American brutal stylings.

I think the primary influence on this album comes from the mighty Suffocation. The same choppy, technical riffs followed by quick pounding slams is here. Also to be found on Bloodline Detriment are the groovy pit riffs of TXDM and the slicing melodicism of CADM. Really there's a lot to like here. A criticism that can be made is that no one element really stands here. While good, most of the brutality here is pretty standard. The vocals follow the riffing in that they are pretty varied, but are also average sounding. Kind of like labelmates Orchidectomy this is partially made up for by the fact that there is a lot of variation which prevents boredeom from setting in.

Now, while I said the brutal riffing tended towards the mean, Dead for Ten Weeks do manage to elevate themselves slightly above the enjoyable mediocrity that characterizes so many bands of this genre. They do this by adding just a couple moments of old school death metal to the album. On the whole I find OSDM pretty good but not as satisfying in the long run as brutal death. However one thing it does better than brutal death metal is creating an atmosphere of evil and that is what elevates Dead for Ten Weeks above the average. Those couple moments of evil, old school sickness, lend Bloodline Detriment some uniqueness and the contrast between the new and old styles makes them both sound better.

I think this phenomenon is similar to what Clitoridus Invaginatus (review) did when they added a couple moments of rock into their brutal death metal. Dead for Ten Weeks don't stray that far from the nest, but they did create an enjoyable album with Bloodline Detriment.

Four New Bands to Check Out

Every so often I like to do some random myspace searching to see what bands I can find. Usually I start on one band and then just click withing their top friends to another band and so on. Today I went on a particularly fruitful trip and found some very good slam coming up from the underground.

First off is Cerebral Incubation who are from Las Vegas, NV. Las Vegas is home to the very popular Guttural Secrete and I can hear some similarities here. CI play very typical USA style midpaced slam. There are plenty pinch harmonics and very good gutturals. Not terribly exciting and you've heard it all before, but it's solid stuff. This is slam death after all, there's not a huge amount of things you can do differently and it's pretty hard to screw up. They have just released their first full length called Asphyxiating on Excrement via the Russian label Soulflesh Collector. I don't think I'll be rushing to get this, but from the sounds of their myspace it's a worthwhile effort.

www.myspace.com/cerebralincubation

Next up on my little tour we have Perverse Dependence who are from the Northwestern Russian port city of Arkhangelsk. I was actually surprised at how good this band is. There is no release information on their myspace and they're not on metal-archives but the little album cover picture on the player says "DEMO" so I'm going to assume they have a demo out somewhere. Musically they remind me of Poppy Seed Grinder, a European Blaze Inside, and Katalepsy. It's really good mix of groove and speed that sounds like it would be awesome for moshing. I hope this band gets signed and releases something soon because they really sound good.

www.myspace.com/perversedependence

Our next stop is Chieti/Pescara, Italy where we find Tools of Torture. Tools of Torture features members of Death/Grind band Bestial Devastation and play groovy brutal death. You can definitely tell it's Italian and there are similarities between this and Septycal Gorge, most notably with it's cool tremolo riffs. Tools of Torture is groovier than their countryment though. Tools of Torture released a full length in 2008 call Faith - Purification - Executioner on Despise the Sun Records. Not the best Italy has to offer but it's still decent. It's more of a testament to the fact that ITDM is so consistently above average rather than that Tools of Torture are below average.

www.myspace.com/againsthepig

Finally we'll head a little bit north to Verona, Italy where we find one man brutalizer Alessandro "Fetz" Simonetti and his musical project Egemony. This guy apparently does everything following in the footsteps of Shawn Whittaker (Insidious Decrepancy) or Ivan Jaramillo (Ancient Necropsy). Egemony has been featured on a 3 way split with other one man projects Flesh Impaled and Infinite Defilement and has just released a full length called Baptysm Of The Unborn which is available in Europe via Nice to Eat You Records and North America via Sevared Records. Again the Italianness is evident and Fetz acknowledges this quite explicitly with a cover of Septycal Gorge's song Abominated Hierarchy and has tons of guest appearance on the album from people throughout the ITDM scene. Fetz takes the ITDM sound and adds a lot of influence from bands like Deeds of Flesh and Disgorge (US). The production quality sounded very good, even with myspaces quality raping factored in. I'm very impressed by this project and I think I'll definitely pick this one up.

www.myspace.com/egemony

"New" Devourment Song Live Video at Tokyo Deathfest

I found this video while searching youtube and I figured the readers of S-M might enjoy it. It's Devourment playing their "new" (quotes because it has been out for a while now) song Fed to the Pigs at Tokyo Deathfest 08. Sounds pretty good and I have high hopes for the new Devourment album which is scheduled to come out this year