Designed as a celebration of horror, No More Room In Hell is the brutal death metal brainchild of two fairly prominent UK musicians: vocalist Mark Gleed of Bristol gore merchants Amputated and multi-instrumentalist Anil Carrier of Binah and Towers Of Flesh. Outside their primary bands it seems that the two were drawn together not just by their mutual love of death metal but also by their conversations about how the genre could do with being taken back to basics. In this sense, ‘No More Room In Hell’ certainly has a straight forward enough musical template. Combine this with an over-arching theme of horror movies, and it sounds like a brutal treat. (As a disclaimer, my knowledge of where the film quotes here come from is ropey at best…)
‘The Dead Will Walk the Earth’ begins with a sample – from the remake of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ perhaps? – in which mankind’s sins are blamed for the current zombie plague infecting Earth. And before we know it, colossal drum beats, riffs and a subterranean “Urgh!” usher in the thunderous, slamming brutal death metal journey that we are about to embark on. I would say the defining aspect of this band’s sound is the type of slow, doomy and apocalyptic riffs they specialise in, which equally descend into heaving effortless groove (refer to ‘Ave Versus Christus’ or ‘Never Sleep Again’). Inevitably the repetition of such riffs creates quite the soundscape to accompany the band’s odes to humanity ending up as lunch. One of the few things which doesn’t appeal to me on ‘NMRIH’ crops up in the opener. As blasts hammer out toward its end, the vocals take on more of a screamed slant which I find far less effective than the main guttural style. Still, this is a minor detail.
What elevates NMRIH above the status of a slower, less subterranean Mortician is the way tempos are mixed within this fundamentally slamming framework. Sure, there are the various horror film samples and explosions of blasting (which do occasionally feel a bit stagnant) but NMRIH offers a mixed bag. On the previously mentioned ‘Ave Versus Christus’ thumping groove rubs shoulders with hyper blasting and vague chanting interjections, whereas on ‘The Soil of a Man’s Heart’ – replete with ‘Pet Cemetery’ dialogue – various riff tempos exemplify the vindictive poise and weight of this band’s attack. The tidal waves of brutal slamming death which overwhelm us are irresistibly crushing. While ‘Join Us’, with its ‘Evil Dead’ concept, proves the least absorbing track of all some brilliance still awaits us at the end of the album. ‘The Innocents’ has a pace capable of transforming ordinary humans to brain-dead zombies before darkening as we are sucked further in.
Without doubt, horror film/brutal death metal aficionados will love dissecting this album for all of its references and crushing movements. In all honesty it’s been a while since I’ve listened to a slamming piece of brutal death of this nature or followed the sub-genre. There’s understandably no massive stylistic divergences throughout but, as emphasised, more than enough going on in the majority of tracks for ‘NMRIH’ to hit the mark overall. In terms of engaging song writing, the power of music and sheer meat content, Anil Carrier and Mark Gleed have done a sterling job.
(8.5/10 Jamie)
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