Review Summary: An album of impending psychosis.
"Benighted"-To be uneducated and morally ignorant, or meaning to be overcome with darkness. Either way, the name does a great job of representing the band, as both words are either sinister of hateful, and it can easily be said that Benighted's "Asylum Cave" covers both. The vocals range from ear piercing pig squeals to blasphemous shouts to immense gutturals, and everything in between, and the music is almost entirely relentless yet diverse. The album takes a balls deep plunge into heaviness, only furthering its downward ascent with each second.
The album documents the story of someone with a mental disorder slowly being consumed by his/her disease, deteriorating. In any setting this would make for a chaotic, schizophrenic metal record. It helps more that the vocalist also works at a mental institution. Simply put the album is disgusting and unsettling, the frantic terror of someone with a mental disorder shining through the chaotic drum patterns, raw distorted riffs and completely disheveled vocals. One can best hear this sort of terror on "Fritzl", which opens up with high-pitched wispy voice of a very young girl stating "Don't worry, daddy will never forsake you". It pushes you out of comfort and into anguished world of the mental patient.
In addition to its equally divisive feelings of being clever and disturbing, the rhythms are catchy. Every piece is so pummeling yet stand out and varied, each song having little tidbits of uniqueness to make them stick out. Two great examples are "Let The Blood Spill Between My Broken Teeth" and "Unborn Infected Children". Between the "Call and answer" (A trade back between a pig squeal screeching "bite", then followed by powerful gutturals for the chorus) on the first track and the dark sinister bass and guitar slides off the latter track, each song introduces a new sound to reinvent the chaos.
Supporting all of this is the sheer talent present by every musician. No instrument is over present or drowned, save for on occasion the bass (However the bass riffs on "Unborn Infected Children" are one of the highlights of the song). It is never monotonous, because new guitar riffs are thrown in constantly, however not so constantly they don't have time to leave behind their impression. Even more impressive is the bestial drumming. The blast beats are used constantly and have insane BPM, however during all of this every other part of the drum set is still utilized so that the drums are always keeping the rhythms fresh. To back the drums are pretty heavy bass lines, and while they do their job without much recognition, they keep the power pretty consistent. Finally the most impressive part of this record are the vocals. Every growl, squeal, screech, and shout is as powerful and projecting as it physically can be that even when you hear the near Demilich-like gurgles it doesn't sound like the vocalist is pushing his boundaries too far. Even though he explores both extremes of the vocal spectrum not a single doesn't include a variety. In fact, on some tracks he switches on the turn of a dime, such as "A Quiet Day". Every range is used to its advantage.
Finally, it's understandable some people might actually find this overbearing. For those people, I can't say much. The album has a very small number of slow, mildly peaceful (by death metals standards) parts. Your best bet is a 15-second melodic solo on the second track, "Let The Blood Spill Between My Broken Teeth". This is the only possible exploitable flaw of the album, however, it could also be a matter of personal taste. It's simply a matter of how much you can be bludgeoned before you reach your threshold.
That being said, this album is a perfect excursion into the forays of a mental institution. Bewildering, chaotic, and slightly nerve wrecking, it embodies every bit of terror it was meant to, creating twelve brutal tracks in its wake.
