Murder Intentions - A Prelude to Total Decay (Soulflesh Collector; 2009)

Let me just get this out of the way at the beginning of the review: this is a deathcore album.

However before you dismiss them as another melodeath band playing boring breakdowns, it should be noted that Murder Intentions fuse slam death with beatdown hardcore. These two genres fit together much better than what the sideways haircut, "irony" filled bands that are so popular today play. For those who don't know what beatdown hardcore is, it's a subgenre of hardcore that emphasizes heavy grooves and breakdowns (or "beatdowns"). Roughly it is to hardcore as slam is to death metal, so you can see how these two genres go well together. Personally I'm a fan of this style of hardcore so it was a pleasant surprise to hear this album from the relatively unknown Belgian band Murder Intentions.

So what does this sound like exactly? There's your death metal blasts and typical slams backed up by some gutturals. Nothing really out of the ordinary but nothing bad either. Added to this are some shouty yet distorted hardcore vocals and hardcore beatdowns. The beatdowns are more abrupt and staccato than slams but generally have the same goal. Both are headbanging and moshable. I have hard to time seeing someone who likes slam a lot really disliking these breakdowns.

Other than a somewhat unique fusion, one which I anticipate we will see more in the future, Murder Intentions are a solid but unremarkable band. A Prelude to Total Decay is good and has a couple great moments (I really liked the song "Failed Humanity"), but unless you really like beatdown hardcore I doubt you'll get too excited. It's a good album to play when you just want something simple and moshable. Kudos to the band for fusing two genres well.