“Music of death, a pleasing chord.”
Since its inception in the 1980s, death metal has remained uncompromising, unrelenting and all together its own macabre form of controlled chaos. Despite the vast assemblage of subgenres that have emerged from death metal’s serrated depths over that span, its lowest common denominators continue to be firmly invariable. Polyrhythmic abundance in the form of blast beats, abrupt tempo changes, harsh vocals, and drop-tuned guitars provide the musically callous underpinnings for lyrical subject matter spanning from superficial horror to nuanced philosophy. As time has gone on and the genre has furcated into a seemingly endless sea of divergent yet familiar sound, seldom have we seen (or heard) of any bands in recent memory fully embracing death metal’s fundamental progenesis. Enter Rochester-based, old-school practitioners, Undeath. Having championed death metal’s primordial roots from the very beginning of their somewhat brief, six-year career, Undeath continue to sustain their established disposition as mavens of the indigenous death metal guard with their third studio album, More Insane.
As More Insanecommences with “Dead from Beyond”, we are met with an initial snare drum march for what feels like an advancement towards doomed frontlines. In the blink of an eye, Undeath begin their necro-celestial assault with Death-like hooks and drum fills layered over vocalist Alexander Jones’ grisly telling of mankind’s Armageddon at the hands of a zombified alien army. The opening track is a showcase of Undeath’s transition to a more technical sound that remains true to antediluvian genre staples and is highly indicative of things to come on the rest of the album.
The titular track follows, allowing us to delve inside the gashed and catacomb-filled cranium of the mentally unstable subject gracing More Insane’s album art. Indeed, listeners will quickly realize Undeath has in fact gone more insane with their third release. Naturally flowing tempo shifts bereft of overzealousness are found throughout this record. That notion is even more evident on the second track. Bass connoisseurs will also be hard pressed not to appreciate Tommy Wall’s groove-riddled solo at the bridge. If you hadn’t already, buckle up and be prepared to take a trip back in death metal time, and indulge in all its mercilessly rhapsodic glory.
More Insane begins to derivatively branch out during the third and fourth tracks. With a thrashy sound that was similarly omnipresent on Death’s Human, Undeath showcase their evolution towards technicality with “Brandish the Blade” and “Disputatious Malignancy”. Not to worry pinch harmonic consumers, “Brandish the Blade” provides plenty of cutlery. Combined with the Slayer-akin “Disputatious Malignancy”, Undeath find themselves at the intersectional crossroads of classic death-thrash influence, whilst still displaying a crushing exhibition of rudimentary skill and technique.
The lyrical oscillation between warfare and psychopathy continues as we return to the battlefield in “Sutured for War”. Accompanying yet another lyrical iteration of Undeath’s battle of attrition is also a return to more of a pure-death sound. This track feels as crushing as it is tightly structured. In an instant, the conflict has reached its end as we move to “Cramped Caskets (Necrology)”. Serving as an unwaveringly mangled elegy for the recently and soon-to-be-alive-again deceased, Undeath recites a fallen soldier’s assimilation into a necrogenic abyss. Matt Browning demonstrates exquisite drumming on not only this track, but the entire record as well.
Undeath then alleviates what has otherwise been a perpetually thrashy-tech-death onslaught up to this juncture of the album with “Bounty Hunter”. Guitarists Kyle Beam and Jared Welch are the standouts of this track. Slow burner hooks galore, “Bounty Hunter” sounds as methodically precarious as the ill-fated victims of the contract killer Jones maliciously growls about.
The two-and-a-half-minute reprieve quickly ends, as Undeath returns to the melancholic tombs of More Insane’s fallen souls with “Wailing Cadavers”. Equal in length but vastly superior in ferocity, the eighth track of Undeath’s journey through the tomb-pervaded psyche of More Insane’s deranged subject is the apotheosis of this record. Featuring what is arguably this album’s most technical and bone crushing sound in tandem with Jones’ peak display of vocal range, “Wailing Cadavers” may in fact possess the violently euphonic prowess to wake the dead.
Undeath closes out their ode to death metal foundations with “Disattachment of a Prophylactic in the Brain” and “Bones Clattering in the Cave”. Seven minutes of impeccably produced, unyielding havoc, the two final tracks embody the wide array of dexterity and technical expertise Undeath has accumulated over the course of their career. Thanks in large part to legendary producer Mark Lewis, More Insane gives the aura of a long-lost 90s death metal record with modern production and sound. Whoso will or won’t enjoy that, is a different conversation entirely.
Death, Necrophagia, Possessed, Slayer, and Cannibal Corpse fans rejoice. In a span of six years, Undeath has continued to take up the old-school death metal reins to an incomparable degree. More Insane is a highly technical barrage of nostalgia-laced sound that has cemented Undeath as traditionalist successors and may soon secure their rightful place in the modern death metal pantheon should their momentum remain constant.
9/10
More Insane releases October 4th through Prosthetic Records and you can preorder it here.