I asked and thees answered! This is another new feature which sees me dusting off ye olde' archives on Gram of old reviews I like and put a new, fresh coat o' paint on 'em. First off on our checklist is none other than my first special brutal death metal record.
Of course it had to be Afterbirth and their masterful sophomore Four Dimensional Flesh. Its significance will be explained below so grab some popcor... just kidding these are quite short hehe.
Since the dawn of our civilization, we as a species gazed towards the stars in search of answers. This, more often than not, led to more questions but in the last hundred years our knowledge reached a point where we began understanding the darkness surrounding us. In truth we probably just started to scratch the surface.
Yet, certain minds attempted to grasp the machinations that define the vast cosmos and I find certain writers particularly interesting in that regard.
Be it Lovecraft's terrifying brand of cosmic horror, Asimov's exploration of robotics and advanced societies or Herbert's mystical sand-ridden world of political games and complex religion, the genre known as science fiction became an integral part of Western society, albeit one predominantly niche.
However, over the years this changed as art from all over the globe became easily accessible to a point where today sci-fi sits at the very top of mainstream culture. Of course, the musical realms followed suite and while got treated with many great cosmic-inspired albums over the years, the truly extreme kinds received a new wind of sorts in recent times. Blood Incantation's Hidden History Of The Human Race immediately comes to mind as it was heralded as a fresh take on death metal while getting a lot of attention which is great and all but I never agreed with this take as the new fresh thing and still don't.
The only truly interesting track "Inner Paths (To Outer Space)" felt shoehorned in and unfortunately had no correlation to the rest of the sound so I was left wanting more.
However, my thirst was quenched in shape of Afterbirth's sophomore Four Dimensional Flesh, a brutal death metal record that actually doubles down on the spacey elements without sacrificing virtually anything.
What makes Afterbirth so special is how they retain brutality, focus and commitment to the art of the riff whilst experimenting just enough to keep it all together. The only thing I can criticize is the one-note burpy vocal approach of Will Smith (the real one, not this actor guy who played great parts in MIB and I, Robot) but even that is easy to overcome due to the sheer quality presented.
The crisp, Marston production, nimble and engaging guitarwork reminiscent of Cryptopsy as much as a gnarly brutal band from NY region, the gorgeous atmospheric interludes, those vicious noise spasms, it all spells greatness.
The interludes such as "Dreaming Astral Body" are laden with shoegaze-like textures and general feeling of weightlessness. This honestly makes these sections a sort of oasis for pensiveness before you're thrust once again into the crushing darkness of space.
But even in these we get some interesting choices like... well the entirety of "Minimum Safe Distance". What starts of ass a playful garage jam with drums playfully creating tension soon explodes and enters the realm of groove. Only afterwards do the winds come howling back with "Rooms To Nowhere" beginning to rear its beautifully ugly head.
Some may know how I actively dislike thrashy grooves but in case of musicians like in Afterbirth, this is done beautifully. A few things make it so and for me they're mostly in the sonic quality. The production is quite wonderful with a particularly loose snare sound which p1ng kings shall immediately notice but the guitars don't swallow everything all the time. This is not only because of the colorful approach in the instrumentation but the tones too. The guitars squeal, they scream into the void, cut atoms or create a nice warm blanket. It's like Robert Smith lulled you to sleep with a slow sadboi banger only to then begin mosh pitting with himself whilst violently burping. It's a thing of beauty I tell ya.
And yes there is a song that backs up this strange comparison. "Swallowing Spiders". No matter how many motions and styles we go through, a sense of fluidity and rampant gorgeous brutality remains, stellar winks stuff.
And I find this relevant as I am not that big on the genre, save from some modern classics like Unfathomable Ruination, Disentomb, Dying Fetus and Defeated Sanity also known as the Triple Brutal D. And yes the name is patented (it's not)!
While you could obviously say this is watered down, noodly blob, I find that potential sentiment far off as I feel Four Dimensional Flesh created this tiny ripple in space and time which begun to spread and will no doubt influence future great bands. I feel the same for Plebeian Grandstand's latest mindfuck masterwork Rien Ne Suffit.
I truly hope bands do so because the potential pool of inspirations is truly vast. Afterbirth created something truly special here and with that I leave you with this sentiment and one I hope you go by:
"Everybody get up it's time to slam now,
We got a real jam goin' down,
Welcome to the Space Slam,
Here's your chance, do your dance,
At the Space Slam alright!"
Four Dimensional Flesh was released through Unique Leader Records on March 13th of 2020.
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