Brutally Deceased - Dead Lovers’ Guide

Ah, death metal from Prague.

Yep, the Czech Republic is in the fray now, and so far it’s vicariously through a memorable band with which to regurgitate your lunch. Brutally Deceased issues its first release in Dead Lovers’ Guide where melodic riffs, carefully-tuned arrangements and sadistic, remorseless vocals are the overall flavor. 

Brutally Deceased is a throwback to the early 90’s Swedish sound, there’s no denying this. Grave is channeled throughout (considering the band was named after the Grave song says something), but Malevolent Creation and Dismember are also quite called upon, especially in “Blissful Desecration”, one of the finer tracks on an equally fine album. The powerful and fluid guitars and attention to melody make this album one of the better underground death metal releases to cross my desk in recent months. In fact, I’m as excited about this as I was about Cardiac Arrest’s Haven for the Insane from last year. It’s so wonderful to be able to enjoy a death release that is rife with melodies and structure so as to identify one song from another. The time changes are so sweet throughout that the total death metal moniker might only be usurped by a slight case of speed or hard thrash. The drumming is also of fine note here, creating (or re-creating) to a perfect degree the ancient walls of sound we devour like warm flesh after a remote plane crash in the deserted mountainside with no hope of rescue. Please don’t let the speed or thrash comparisons deter you; these guys are unabashedly death metal, but the strategic slowdowns and timely tempo changes are full of life (or DEATH) and really make Dead Lovers’ Guide one hell of a ride!

Vocally it’s very much the standard death metal style but void of the guttural ‘click-and-pop’ façade; tracks like “…And Here I Die Forsaken” are just what the fan base clamors for: old-school death metal the likes of which our Scandinavian forefathers perfected and made legend. Even the cover of Dismember’s “Override of the Overture” is done so alarmingly well that it’s easy to see the range of the band’s influences as well as their urge to resist stagnancy or plasticity. The down-tuned assault herein bleeds incessantly like an open wound that festers and refuses to close from the inside, making this a death metal must-hear for the ardent contingency out there that accepts no quarter or pale substitutions.

With some death metal bands today you often get a fast-paced, sloppy mess that is so muddied in the waters it must be good if you don’t ‘get it’ right away. These bands don’t get it themselves; it’s okay to force the guttural, nonsensical brand into the mouths of the innocent novice from time to time, but with intelligent lyrical prowess, pride and respect for the genre’s history and future and seemingly effortless honesty seeping out of the pores of these songs, Brutally Deceased might well be one of the acts that sets the bar that much higher so as to force these upstarts into submission through perfection. Only true death is real…. 

Release Date:  September, 2010
Label: Lavadome Productions

TRACK LISTING

1.  Lustful Sodomy in the
     House of God
2.  Dead Lovers' Guide
3.  Blissful Desecration
4.  They Shall Feast
5.  ...And Here I Die Forsaken
6.  A Life Once Aborted
7.  Demise of the Human Swine
8.  All That Rots and Withers
9.  Override of the Overture
     (Dismember cover)

Total playing time:  33:12

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*Comments:

Reviewer: Chris

February 28, 2011