Dying Fetus - Descend into Depravity (Relapse Records; 2009)

One of the things we try to do here at Slam-Minded is write about upcoming and unknown slam bands that we like so that hopefully other people will like them as well. I'm going to depart from that goal today however and instead review an album from probably the best known slam band of all time. Whether or not Dying Fetus really fit in the slam genre is a reasonable argument but not one I really want to have. Instead I'll say that I really like Dying Fetus and that they've had a huge influence on my taste in metal and I think on the brutal death metal scene as a whole.

That being said though what have they done for us lately? I think if you ask your average death metal fan they'll tell you their favorite Dying Fetus album is one of their earlier works like Killing on Adrenaline or Infatuation with Malevolence. 2007's War of Attrition was good but in my opinion too opaque and dense to really get into. With this in mind I went into Descend into Depravity with some skepticism. I am very happy to report that my skepticism was unwarranted, this album rules.

This is definitely a throwback to the more groove oriented sound Dying Fetus had in their earlier days. The album I'd compare this most to is Killing on Adrenaline which is my personal favorite. Of course it sounds like it was recorded in the late 00s rather than the mid 90s but the same kind of riffs are there. For those who haven't heard Dying Fetus before what you'll get here is a lot of catchy grooves mixed with lightning fast arpeggios and stomping blasts. I hesitate to say that these grooves are slams because they don't really sound like other slam bands, but they're working off the same idea and they're awesome. Musicianship is top notch as you would expect from this veteran band. It seems like they decided to focus on making the grooves the focus of the songs rather than having-encompassing technicality which weakened their previous album War of Attrition.

Despite all the lineup changes that Dying Fetus has had to endure, they still manage to put out great records and this one is even better than I had a right to expect. I'd put it as the best Dying Fetus album of the 2000s. If you haven't picked this one up yet do so and if you haven't listened to Dying Fetus before this is a good place to start.