Macabra – Blood-Nurtured Nature (MetalHit)

I can never go for more than a few days without my old school death metal getting some play and making me extremely critical and obnoxiously stubborn to review recent stuff due to loyalty and subconscious comparisons with the originators. Recently Baphomet, Nocturnus, Cancer, and as always, Dismember (Like an Everflowing Stream) have been giving my ears an exhaustive workout and Macabra fit into that niche perfectly. Tracks like “Hominal Peel Diggers” carry a lethal dosage of simple and crunchy deeper toned “squeal” guitar leads and an even balance of old school death growls between Swedish and U.S. styles, at times rumbling in the guttural realm of Swedish riffage, but always weaving in and out of many classic death metal styles and never giving way to imitation or any specific style over another.

Blood-Nurtured Nature is just what we all need, it’s:  Morbid Angel, Entombed, Obituary, Immolation, Suffocation, Death, Sinister,Wombbath, Dismember and so on; all at once with no compromising. No two tracks are the same, each of the eight on here have great dynamics in vocals that range from straight ahead deep throat grating to more of a shriek but the lyrics are still distinguishable. “Consuming the Fleshly Wax” busts out some great abysmal melodic instrumental that gives a bit sense of Death without too much technicality, rather just the right amount to go alongside the distinctive bassline to create an empty and desolate abyss. The piano intro to “Thick Slabs of Moribund Fat” layered over an angular guitar melody instantly ropes you in and begins to dissolve your soul, but before you get deeper into what appears to be an Edge of Sanity epic and melodic death metal tune, it goes to trudging and grunting primal barbarism. There’s even some thrashy rhythm guitar chugging that wraps around your neck like a noose made of your own entrails, having been ripped out earlier in the album.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that this band is another project of Mark Riddick (Fetid Zombie),as it does fit his artwork and old school death metal roots.  It also turns out that the vocals were recorded in an old funerarium, which gives it a legitimate aura of death that can’t be bullshitted through effects. All in all, this is not only an incredible debut album that literally reeks of old school death brutality and rawness, but it could even pass as a long lost album dug up from some unconsecrated obscurity of early 90’s demo ground.

If you don't have this...you're death metal collection will never be complete!!!!

http://metalmaniacs.bigcartel.com/product/macabra-blood-nurtured-nature