ALBUM REVIEW: Autopsy – Morbidity Triumphant

AUTOPSY are a band that always embodied real Death Metal, and never let it go. After their crushing recent appearance at UK Deathfest, a new album couldn’t have come at a better time. Out via Peaceville Records on September 30th.

Ferociously blasting into life with monstrous drumming, barked vocals and mangled riffs, the corpse-lifting aromas of Autopsy fill the air. Gruelling and brutal as ever, there is immediately a clear-cut announcement of their everlasting dedication to the old school ways. The dark riffs are met with wholly revolting lead assaults and everything falls into place with a dirty, unpolished and yet crushing production that has been characteristic of the band since day one. Staying interesting and relevant while not betraying your roots can be a difficult balance for many old bands, but Autopsy have achieved this time and time again, it seems “Morbidity Triumphant” will hold up too. As the early moments unfold with such aggression, you cannot flaw them for delivering such savagery from the get-go which drops you head first into a fetid pool of odious rot, rather than some dwindling build-up, they keep it true. From the dripping, eerie guitar sound and gut-wrenching bass tone to the booming spacey drums and larynx shredding vocals, this is clearly going to rip flesh apart and then shower the listeners remains in bile. The opening song puts it into words best as the start of this record does indeed “Stab the Brain”.

Along with their mightily carnivorous moments of classic thrashing fury, they have also kept those “Mental Funeral”-esque doomy bits, which sway like a zombie about to fall into the grave. Building more tension and atmosphere but with a groove that hammers itself into the cranium, it remains as barbarically heavy and intoxicating as it was back then. I think this can largely be credited to the fact that these four maniacs are still devout Death Metal devourers which shows in their own art, which feels impassioned, rather than like some old phoneys trying to cash in on former glories. No, Autopsy will always be some of the most dedicated at delivering us true morbidity. The songs move with a raging chaos that jump from often macabre atmospheres into gadarene blast-beats and riffing while the hideously grotesque vocals retain a consistently well-matched balance of growls, gurgles and snarls. Decades of playing top-quality Death Metal does not just give one masterful songwriting abilities, but ensures a tight, uncompromising and unforgiving execution.

Although Autopsy are known for their primitive noises, there is some intricacies that are worth digging into. Some of the riffs borrow and almost Voivodian tinge (such as on “The Voracious One”) which really injects a cool weirdness into the record, while plenty of blundering moments still serve to revolt and cause carnage. The interwoven idolatry for grossness comes in the forms of rotten grooves that barrel regularly into pure early 90s glory then throw in some insane whammy abuse before taking us back to a stomping slab of sadistic riff-craft. Reifert’s drumming is still as intense and natural as ever, as are his visceral vocal performances. Cutler, Coralles, and Wilkinson make up a formidable force across the fleshy strings their their unified dirge of dirtiness giving the record an untamed strength. It’s hard to single out tracks as particularly stand-out efforts when each has a significant and worthy place on the record, so this review should be taken as that of the album as one length of lurid decay that must be listened to in full, at high volumes and ideally while looking at the superb Wes Benscoter cover art.

We all knew a new Autopsy record would slay. I don’t think there was any doubters, and if there was, get off my site damn it! In all seriousness, these voracious veterans of putridity did not just simply give us two of the best albums the genre has known, but continue to deliver top-shelf material. The elements of their classic sound are still heavily present, but they don’t need to cash in on their historical glories when they can still churn out such killer Death Metal as we hear boldly presented here. Morbidity reigns triumphant, now feast upon the festering flesh!