Fleshcrawl - Made Of Flesh
2004 - 3984-14477-2 - Metal Blade Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Isn't it great how you can usually tell what you're going to get from a metal album the moment you look at the cover artwork? A monochromatic photo of moonlit forests, and you're talking grim black metal. A gaudy fantasy scene replete with dragons and furry-boot wearing Conan-alikes, and you have European power metal. A bunch of baby-oiled closet-cases in loincloths, and you have Manowar. And so it is with Fleshcrawl - a lovingly rendered scene of a corpse simultaneously in several states of decomposition, connected by painful organic bonds to a sea of skulls and muscle fibre, and you know instantly you're going to be getting prime, brutal death metal.
And that's exactly what this German group provide - and that's what they've been doing for 12 years and 6 previous albums, so the assumption would be that they've gotten pretty damned good at it by now. And by goat, is that an accurate assumption or what? Made Of Flesh absolutely rocks in a Grave/Dismember/God Dethroned stylee - not for these Teutonic titans the experimental accoutrements of modern acts, nor the polished production of the Gothenberg set. Nope, Fleshcrawl are quite happy to go teeth-first for the jugular, delivering crushing steamroller-driven monsters of tracks like opener 'Beneath A Dying Sun', possessed of an evil groove reminiscent of Obituary.
The production is spot-on for this style of no-nonsense, traditionally brutal death metal - the guitar tone is dirty, abrasive and raw, the drums are clean and precise, the bass an ominous rumble, the vocals up front in the mix but not dominant. Add to this the diversity in the song writing - 'Forged In Blood' and 'Carnal Devourment' are (at least initially) hyper-speed exercises in tremolo-picked nastiness that could give Kataklysm nightmares, while the opener is a mid-tempo trawl through ankle-deep human remains - and the sheer energy of the whole album, and you have an old-school death metal classic.
9/10
Fleshcrawl Official Website
Metal Blade Records Website
2004 - 3984-14477-2 - Metal Blade Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Isn't it great how you can usually tell what you're going to get from a metal album the moment you look at the cover artwork? A monochromatic photo of moonlit forests, and you're talking grim black metal. A gaudy fantasy scene replete with dragons and furry-boot wearing Conan-alikes, and you have European power metal. A bunch of baby-oiled closet-cases in loincloths, and you have Manowar. And so it is with Fleshcrawl - a lovingly rendered scene of a corpse simultaneously in several states of decomposition, connected by painful organic bonds to a sea of skulls and muscle fibre, and you know instantly you're going to be getting prime, brutal death metal.
And that's exactly what this German group provide - and that's what they've been doing for 12 years and 6 previous albums, so the assumption would be that they've gotten pretty damned good at it by now. And by goat, is that an accurate assumption or what? Made Of Flesh absolutely rocks in a Grave/Dismember/God Dethroned stylee - not for these Teutonic titans the experimental accoutrements of modern acts, nor the polished production of the Gothenberg set. Nope, Fleshcrawl are quite happy to go teeth-first for the jugular, delivering crushing steamroller-driven monsters of tracks like opener 'Beneath A Dying Sun', possessed of an evil groove reminiscent of Obituary.
The production is spot-on for this style of no-nonsense, traditionally brutal death metal - the guitar tone is dirty, abrasive and raw, the drums are clean and precise, the bass an ominous rumble, the vocals up front in the mix but not dominant. Add to this the diversity in the song writing - 'Forged In Blood' and 'Carnal Devourment' are (at least initially) hyper-speed exercises in tremolo-picked nastiness that could give Kataklysm nightmares, while the opener is a mid-tempo trawl through ankle-deep human remains - and the sheer energy of the whole album, and you have an old-school death metal classic.
9/10
Fleshcrawl Official Website
Metal Blade Records Website
