Review Summary: Portland, "Goregon" based death metal act simultaneously channel the brutality and groove on their full length debut.
So much for presentation: Portland, “Goregon” death metal quartet eschewed the standard slipcase and neat and tidy promo pack and instead sent me a folded up 8” x 11” leaf of printer paper enclosed with a burned CD simply marked “promo.” But what the young newcomers lack in aesthetic value and business sense, they clearly hold their own in sheer speed and vicious musicianship on Dead Rising.
The album – which is also the band’s full length debut – is short and sweet, just barely breaking the half hour mark with its final track, “Immune to Poison,” which was originally recorder by Nunslaughter. But, unlike those Ohioan death thrashers, Among the Decayed take a different approach to their craft by keeping their style strictly new school in the vein of other contemporary death/grind acts such as Pig Destroyer, Leng Tch’e and Dying Fetus. The movie clip intros and sudden assaults of noise from pure quiet of the former two bands and the guttural vocals and deviously thick groove of the latter act comprise most of Among the Decayed’s sound, creating an interesting, if not completely original, style.
While tracks like “Out of Malice” and “Sacrificial War” do nothing new for Among the Decayed’s increasingly populated (and popular) sub genre, the latter half of the album is where the band really stretches its collective legs and gets down to business. The blindingly quick playing on “Evolution” (parts 1 and 2) and “Feardom” belies a subtle creativity that takes more than a few listens to become fully apparent to the listener. The surprisingly clean production helps matter along, though, and while the constantly blasting drums are a little too low in the mix, the shredding guitar and absolutely inhuman vocals of frontman Kevin are more than enough to catch the attention of any death metal aficionado.
