‘Why me?’ I thought when I saw the band name…. I mean come on Pete, I’d just been feasting on some ‘Genital Putrefaction’ and now you’re sending me a band called ‘Lavatory’ (and no doubt giggling when you did it). Well once again – don’t judge a book by it’s cover…. Or rather a band by their name (however shite it is) because Lavatory are not what you expect.
Hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, you might be surprised to learn that they hammer out some pretty authentic ‘classic Swedeath’. Coming on like Nihilist & Dismember they wear their classic Stockholm / Sunlight influences proudly on their manky sleeves.
‘Morbid Terror’ is their first album proper after 2012’s ‘Transgression’ EP and is a suitably dirty sounding slice of crypt robbing death metal.
Opening up with ‘Absorption’ – a standard spooky / acoustic guitar intro, the band stamp their decleration of all things old school and Swedish on ‘Descent Into Madness’ with a ‘cyclone of chainsawfuck riffs’ (gotta love the promo material).
Lavatory aren’t afraid to slow things down and be crushingly heavy and Sabbathesque too – the opening riff of my fave track ‘Death Is Imminent’ for example but they seem happier smashing along in a high speed thrashing whirlwind of D-Beats and rusty razor riffage on catchy tracks like ‘Morbid Terror’, ‘Miserable Life’ and ‘Thousand Roads To Hell’. All good stuff as is the wicked cover artwork by Swedish artist Daniel Johnsson (Entrails, Sorcery, Torture Division, etc).
All in this album has a certain bewitching charm to it, obviously bands like Entrails & Smothered etc do this kind of thing better and you won’t remember more than two riffs when you’ve played it through but you’ll have no problem hitting play again straight away.
If you like your death metal old school and Swedish you could do a lot worse than giving these Malaysians a flush – sorry – listen.
(7.5 / 10 Mark Eve)
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