“Our bodies are a graveyard from which we will rise again.”
Corpse Pile have never been the type of act to concern themselves with mysticisms or braggadocious aesthetics. There’s nothing overly complex about their demeanor or approach to sonic execution. Rather, the Texas outfit embodies every literal sense of brutal and death metal to a nauseatingly obscene degree. The misshapen brood of Devourment reared their abominable heads in 2020, hellbent on conceptualizing everything brutal death metal has stood for to the extent of drowning us in mellifluous sludge. Given the thematic undertones of their latest unholy offering, In the Beginning…, Corpse Pile have turned the blood-soaked sun dials back to the genre’s roots and, as a result, have reset the hardgore death metal scales, much in the same way PSYCHO-FRAME and DROWNED UNDER CONCRETE did for deathcore and slam earlier this year. In the Beginning… is a quick but laboriously torturous head-first dive into the deepest recesses of brutal death metal’s jagged chasm, with no hope of escape.
There’s been no shortage of scrutiny towards self-proclaimed revival bands or groups that assert semblance to a bygone era. Most of the time, this type of pontification is nothing more than a glasshouse argument. In the case of Corpse Pile, there is measurable weight as to why they hold themselves in higher regard than their peers. John Gallagher-like growls, down-tuned riff work, and lamp post snares have been firmly fixed in Corpse Pile’s discography for the last half-decade; they know what it’s all about.
If flamboyance had, at any point, become even remotely obtrusive in Corpse Pile’s music, this review would not be making it to print. Faithful proponents of brutal death metal have set a rigorous but fair expectation for modern acts. Because of the pervasive track record of oversaturation continuing to plague other genres into an endlessly degradative state, there’s hardly any room for a counterargument to the former. Corpse Pile not only hold the intent of staying aligned with traditional aspects of what exactly makes a true brutal death metal project, but implore everyone else to follow suit and suck considerably less ass in doing so.
Hardgore Deathmetal may have just been the warmup stretch, retroactively speaking. Undoubtedly among the best EP releases of 2024, it seemed Corpse Pile was at a halfway point between experimentation and knowing what they wanted to be. Regardless, Corpse Pile nonetheless displayed undisputed expertise from the standpoint of punishing listeners into vegetative submission. With In the Beginning…, we’ve graduated from a Sawzall to the midsection to a shredding disk to the scrotum. Either time travel is real, or Corpse Pile happen to be really fucking good at this, but In the Beginning… might be the best EP Devourment never made.
The sheer breadth of slams and serrated riffs laid throughout In the Beginning… consistently sustains. Brutal death metal means refusing to let up, even for a second. Stringers Davis Pryse Snyder and Landry Arredondo keep the motor running at maximum power from front to back, prospecting riff-induced aneurysms at every turn. In sync with Alex Covarrubias’s fifty-caliber drumming, the percussion work is just as unforgiving. Understandably, Corpse Pile may want to wallop fans who even so much as thought that slight deviation from literal brutal death metal was a good idea to begin with, but integrating slamming bass drops that deaf counseling centers could hear is taking it to a gleefully deformed extreme. In every sense, this is a level of brutality that is coveted by many and matched by none.
If anyone in the contemporary metal space is a true connoisseur of the olden days, it’s vocalist Jason Frazier. In the Beginning… suffocates with its instrumentals and disembowels with Frazier’s dynamic range. Thanks to an invariably raspy coat of production that generally gives In the Beginning… the acoustic mass of a black hole, Frazier is the fifth instrument in Corpse Pile’s limited but decidedly lethal stockpile.
In the Beginning… isn’t overly varied by any means, but that is the precise reason why it’s as relentless and cudgeling as it is. This, yet again, coincides with adhering to basic principles. There is no need whatsoever to abandon vigor for spectacle. If it wasn’t clear from the first set of singles that Corpse Pile dropped leading up to Hardgore Deathmetal, you will bend over, take a slamming chainsaw up the rectum, and enjoy every second of it. In the Beginning… is merely that on steroids. All sharpened tooth bite and no feeble bullshit bark.
By and large, In the Beginning… evokes every characteristic of an EP that exists to prove something. You can have all the disposable talent you want as a band, but without devotion to rudiments, it often means very little. No one gives a shit if you can bellow for ten seconds straight or tap a fretboard for an entire song. If flashiness for the sole purpose of being different is what integral metal junkies actually cared about, maybe Alestorm would have won that Grammy by now. Corpse Pile have provided model exhibitions on how this is done the right way in just a few short years. While unfortunate, a downturn in the quality of output in the modern scene is ultimately what prompted bands like Corpse Pile to exist in the first place. In the Beginning… is another welcome scale-tipping entry in 2025 that cements the imminence of a heavy music renaissance unfolding before our very eyes and ears. Fuck your life. Death metal forever.
9.5/10
In the Beginning… has been released as of today, October 3, through Arson Theory and Maggot Stomp, and can be ordered here.