This long established and pioneering death metal band like many of its compatriots in the genre does not write bad albums but writes continually top quality releases through which you have personal favourites but never poor ones, but with this eighth album they have recorded an absolute scorching album. There have been so many terrific death metal albums this year and we are only half way through it, from acts such as Immolation, Entrails, Basement Torture Killings, Morta Skuld, Deserted Fear, Vallenfyre, Sinister, etc I could fill a paragraph with considerable ease.

As a three piece Dying Fetus John Gallagher is the sole original member but the band has had a stable line up for about a decade and that stability has reinforced the song writing with each successive album since as this release detonates into life with “Fixed On Devastation” without warning and any pointless intro sequence via trademark fret work gymnastics leading into the slamming riff work. The sound on the album is formidable with each aspect of the instrumentation afforded space and focus when required as each track swerves via myriad of tempo shifts with switches in riffs that occur tangentially without warning. The leading riff to “Die With Integrity” serves to bring about an air of menace as the track starts gently, for this band anyway, increasing the intensity ready for the jarring chaotic riffing assault which has an ethos of freneticism but controlled to the point of mathematical precision but retaining that air of catchiness that is inherent to all of Dying Fetus’ songs.

Complex and fervently addictive “Revelling In The Abyss” passes through various phases of unerring brutality utilising sporadic blast waves within riff and lead breaks that make the song seem irrepressibly rabid at times, but held together by supremely catchy riffing adhesive. Scurrying into thrash realms “Ideological Subjugation” begins with an ardent thrash riff before unleashing a barrage of double kick that floods the song with that Dying Fetus guile we all love. Initially “Weaken The Structure” seems to be the slowest track on the album with its more leisurely pace, muscly bass work and tuneful guitar work only for it to be obliterated by the seismic blast beat that unceremoniously explodes into the song. The album closes with the title track using a nifty bass hook initially before the track reveals a crisp riff break and subsequent blast section. The song chops and changes swiftly around the riff, varying the speed hugely as the vocals turn downwards into a cavernous drawl before allowing the song to barrel into its finale with a battering blast and excellent slamming riff section that follows. Dying Fetus definitely are the wrong ones to fuck with based on the credentials of this beast of an album.

(9/10 (Martin Harris)

http://www.facebook.com/DyingFetus

https://dyingfetus.bandcamp.com