### Neuroma: Extremophile

#### 19/10/11 || Smalley

Awful album name, huh? Anyway, “Always recycle… to the Extrem-ophile!!!” is Neuroma’s (neutral + aroma? how would you know a neutral aroma’s even there?) debut full length, brutal death metal in style right down to the gorily funny song names (“Chicken poodle soup”, anyone?), but not as repetitive songwriting-wise as someone like Suffocation, so that’s good at least. Still, this is pretty unremarkable, half-baked material; the songs lack focus and change direction randomly for no reason a bit too much, and the riffing doesn’t groove enough, but mostly just drones, which is the biggest dealbreaker here for me.

Also, the snare drum sound is too dry, which kinda annoys, but the guitar sounds are just fine, and the ultra-guttural growling is decent, at least, so their basic sound is mostly okay. Also, they like to use those campy movie samples that I fucken hate in metal, so there’s that. Maybe they should listen to their T-shirt idols a bit more (at least to Decapitated in particular), and then get back to making metal.

6/10: This is a pretty half-baked debut; go back to work on your sound or don’t bother working altogether.