Album Review: Autopsy – The Headless Ritual

//Album Review: Autopsy – The Headless Ritual

Autopsy The Headless Ritual

Autopsy – “The Headless Ritual”

by Gary Lukes

For every one of us, there are certain sounds that trigger a shot of nostalgic bliss. For some, it’s the warm, aging chime of the family grandfather clock or the glacial crunch of virgin snow underfoot. For others, it may be the dulcet melody of early-morning birdsong or just the shrill, anaemic tones of their favourite lullaby (I won‘t judge).

But for a select, sadistic few, there isn’t much on this earth that’s able to tug so malevolently on the (rotten) heart-strings than the doomed death metal din of San Francisco’s Autopsy. A hideously gut-wrenching tone many feared lost to the dust, before its unholy resurrection circa 2009.

While the resultant releases, “The Tomb Within” and “Macabre Eternal”, couldn’t sink to the same diseased depths as (all-time classic) “Mental Funeral”, those arid barks and roiling riffs gouged their way back into the listener’s ear canal just as it did decades before, freshly churning stomachs the world over.

And so “The Headless Ritual” rears its gory visage and lurches straight for the jugular, barrelling into a familiar frenzy of blasts and dry growls. Opener “Slaughter at Beast House” is ravaged with grievous leads that howl and then coagulate into a doomed crawl, only for “ Mangled Far Below” to tear recklessly over its horizon, riddled in unhinged riffery.

It’s a colossal opening. Proof the Bay-Area morgue-dwellers still posses a stockade of scalpel-sharp song-writing skills. And any further doubts should be tucked up in their grave by “She is a Funeral”, a track pervaded by a perverted, almost macabre melody that scrapes and drags its heels to the morose waltz of the band’s signature down-tempo riffs. The longest song on the album, its eight-minute run-time is wrought and rotted to the end but never outstays its welcome; one of the few real qualms about “Macabre Eternal”.

However, modern-day Autopsy are a band still encrusted by the puke-stained, punkier tendencies of both Abcess and their own mid-nineties excess; the likes of “When Hammer Meets Bone” and “Running from the Goathead” are relentless and beastly. And while I find myself spending large chunks of the album waiting for the band to ease up on the throttle, Reifert and company still have the ruthless ability to allow their songs to naturally decay into the rolling, slow-paced groove of yester-yore. A trait evidenced during “Arch Cadaver”, which splatters snap-neck riffing over hulking notes and withering, wretched leads.

Staggering and swaying to a feverish, winding melody, “Flesh Turns to Dust” is jaundiced and almost jaunty. Finding itself swallowed up by a final, molten dirge. Which leaves the instrumental title-track to bring an end to this twisted collection.

There’s no real surprises to be found on “The Headless Ritual”. But this shouldn’t be a problem for a fan base that largely wasn’t asking for any. Autopsy may never birth an abomination as fearsome as “Mental Funeral” again, but this could be the closest they’ve come since.

For an act that began raising the dead over a quarter of century ago, there’s something to be said for their consistency. Despite the accusations of stagnation in the death metal scene, it’s still a genre that has seen old-hands produce monstrosities such as “The Unspoken King” and “Illud Divininum Insanus” over recent years. Sentiment aside, it’s almost a relief to hear a band content with writing about atrocities rather than creating them.

8/10

Order the album from Peaceville Records here.

Check out Autopsy on facebook here and their offical site here.

 

By |2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00August 15th, 2013|CD Reviews|0 Comments

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