“Where Dead Dreams Dwell”, Feral’s second album, was in my top 20 albums of 2015 due to its terrorizing death metal assault and this EP sees that mission continue with six tracks of unrelenting ferocity that begins with “The Hand Of The Devil”. There are hordes of bands recording Swedeath style death metal but where this band stands out is the riffs and structuring which grasp the tenets of 20 plus years ago, but focus them into songs of the utmost pulverising quality. Sound wise this is pretty close to Entombed’s “Clandestine” which was disliked by Entombed at the time but I absolutely adore due its outright pummelling intensity which is duplicated on this EP to excellent effect.
“Reborn In The Morgue” opens with a cranium drilling riff that possesses a grisly but catchy approach complete with a head smashing riff break. “The Cult Of The Head” explodes into rancidity with a gnarly gutter scraping riff and pounding drums that bomb the track from start to finish; awesome tune. Contrasting nicely is “The Rite” which starts more slowly boring into the listener as the drums nail you to the ultra-heavy bass foundation. Continuing the slower theme is “Necrofilthiac 2016” which batters like jack hammer with a great riff and monumentally heavy drum beat that leads to an excellent bass riff break. A death grunt follows as the tempo of the song retains a behemothic quality that is laid down by the formidable drums. Vocally this album is demonic with some variation in tone but otherwise they stick to gut churning bellows with a prehistoric roar underpinning them.
Closing the EP is a cover of Pentagram’s “Relentless” which is given a total Swedeath makeover and to some degree it works but the solemnity of the original is a little lost but overall the version is a bludgeoning success much like this EP as a whole.
(8/10 Martin Harris)
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