Review Summary: Boredom Fuel
Every genre has it's ebbs and flows from the highs of certain artists to the lows of others. As far as death metal is concerned, for every Ulcerate or Defeated Sanity you have a Gatecreeper or a Guts. The latest fad in death metal is playing slow/mid tempo riffs and mixing those (often times sleep inducing) riffs with Mike DeSalvo era Cryptopsy hardcore vocals in an attempt to appeal to a larger crowd. In some ways that approach has worked, but real death metal fans can see right through that tired mumbo jumbo.
Guts is a death metal band from Finland and their newest album,
Nightmare Fuel, represents the epitome of chugging, one note 2020s death metal. One track after another goes by full of riffs that are stale, recycled and often sound identical to each other. Finnish death metal as a whole is known for being murky and sounding like it was recorded at the bottom of a cosmic bog. Just ask bands like Demilich, Adramelech and Rippikoulu how to make death metal that sounds like a zombie's farts.
Nightmare Fuel has zero in common with those classic bands.
If anything, Guts try to add some melody into their unoriginal brand of chugs and boring mid tempo drumming. Speaking of the drums, they make no impact whatsoever. For me personally, the drumming is a key focal point of any death metal album and sadly there's nothing here that will "wow" any listener. As for the melody in the riffage? Its pointless. Because when you have no variety and no pace switches, does it really matter how much lifeless melody you inject into that? The vocals sound like a guy with strep throat trying his best to get out a few intelligible words when in reality nobody can understand a word he's saying. They're raspy but not in a good, black metal kind of way. Raspy like nails on a chalkboard that may have people wanting to turn this monstrosity off before it even really begins.
Guts can be added to the list of overproduced, uninspired list of death metal acts that can't decide if they want to ACTUALLY play death metal or if they really just want to meddle in the crowd of Hatebreed followers. Bands like this, Gatecreeper, Frozen Soul, etc all sound exactly the same and contribute next to nothing to the death metal movement. They're core kids without being full on hardcore and they're death metal to people who think Six Feet Under is the best band ever. To say it flat out,
Nightmare Fuel is one of the most boring/bland death metal albums I've heard in the past decade and I hope that you'll take the red flags into account before you think about wasting your time jamming this borefest.
