### Autopsy: The headless ritual

#### 12/07/13 || Ironpants

Ol’ man river… of blood and entrails.

One of the pioneers of the old world return once more with an album, and at least I, is immediately curious of what they might have up their sleeves? For starters, I can come clean at once and reveal that I have never been a huge fan of Autopsy (pause for gasping noises and mumbling in the audience). Yes, it’s true, live with it. But, I am a dedicated reviewer which I hope you’ve noticed? (pause for applauds and cheers from the audience).

Every death metal head know the story around Autopsy, and everybody knows the importance of their works in the early years, so I don’t need to exhume their complete discography and history from the vaults, so we can keep it short and just mention that they returned from the grave with first a single and then an EP and later a full length album in 2011. The comeback album “Macabre eternal” , was not very welcome here at GD, and ex-staffer Altmer was rather disappointed. How will this new album stand up against it’s predecessor?

Let’s cut to the chase, change to your Speedo’s (of course made of studded leather), and make a swan dive into this pool of gore and gutted innards. Autopsy is very much like a “dirty bomb”, you know, some kind of explosive charge manipulated to leave radioactive residues and contaminate the area where it is used. The album explodes in the middle of your living room and leaves a trace of blood and gore in the room even after a few hours after you listened. When the first song takes off, you feel like you are in the middle of some filthy warehouse, hanging upside down from a meat hook, while some madman is sharpening his blades singing along to the music in the background, and the sound of Autopsy is seldom mistaken for something else.

This album have a few pros and cons. Let’s start with the cons for change, then we will remember the good things after we have left this review. One major con, is that Chris Reifert has forgotten how to growl properly. In this album he sounds like an old drunken movie pirate, and in some parts it’s downright awful. He also overuses the so called “puke-ending” a little too much. For example in the tune “She is a funeral”, I don’t know what the fuck he is up to?

Another con is that even if Autopsy always have been known for a grittier sound than others, it’s supposed to be kind of “rotten”, on this album it’s somewhere in between, not dirty, but not really good sounding either. Especially the drum sound leaves more to be asked from, and it wouldn’t hurt if they polished it up a bit.

The pros is that they try a bit of a different path with blending in more of the doomier parts, which I find for the better and it adds to diversity. And, most of the songs are standing out for themselves, and they actually differs from one another. These old farts still know how to write songs, even if some of the songs feels a bit too long. The doomy parts are pretty good, and a careful guess might be that they are going in that direction, and the next album should be even doomier than this?

If you look at this record for what it is, an old legendary band forcing their way through life cranking out songs and does not leave any direct hints for quitting just yet (they have just revived damn it), then it is pretty good, and here and there they live up to their old standards, and keeping their dignity with some small changes. But if I compare it to other releases this year, and first and foremost, compare it with their own back catalog it isn’t really that superb? It’s an OK old school US death metal album, albeit a pretty sloppy one, with highlights spread out through the album, but the cons (especially the vocal parts) leaves me craving for a higher standard than this.

So, if you are into Autopsy, I guess you get what you need, and if you think that a sloppy production adds to the atmosphere, by all means, go and get it. But I think that this is not an album I’ll return to more than once or twice.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Peaceville Records
- Website: www.autopsy.com
- Band
- Chris Reifert: vocals, drums
- Eric Cutler: guitars, vocals
- Danny Coralles: guitars
- Joe Allen: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Slaughter at beast house
- 02. Mangled far below
- 03. She is a funeral
- 04. Coffin crawlers
- 05. When hammer meets bone
- 06. Thorns and ashes
- 07. Arch cadaver
- 08. Flesh turns to dust
- 09. Running from the goathead
- 10. The headless ritual