### Intestine Baalism: Banquet in the darkness

#### 27/02/12 || BamaHammer

With a name like Intestine Baalism, I almost expected this band to sound like some type of over-the-top evil splattercore-style brutal death metal when I first stumbled across them. However, that premature assessment was almost entirely wrong. Tokyo’s Intestine Baalism combine all the best aspects of In Flames-ian melodic Gothenburg death metal with a masterful hint of brutality and variety to create one of the world’s finest death metal outfits.

I think I would have to use the word melodious instead of groovy when describing this particular brand of death metal. The music is still brutal, heavy, and aggressive, but an overwhelming majority of the parts of every song have so much melody that it’s really impossible not to be sucked into it. However, I don’t really consider this band as being one that belongs under the same “melodic death metal” blanket term as the Gothenburg bands like In Flames or Dark Tranquillity either simply because they’re composed of just a wee bit more brutality, and that gives them a unique edge to their sound. Musically, they also flirt with black metal tremolo picking and bombastic power metal elements that further broaden their array of styles they can bring to the table.

The production seems quite thin on first listen, and it seems like this album isn’t very loud overall. The rhythm guitar sounds are very smooth which helps add clarity and precision to a lot of the riffs, which is a definitely good thing since so many of the riffs are so catchy. The actual song arrangements are where this album demonstrates its true brilliance. While the riffing may initially sound fairly typical, quite often a prevailing melodic lead part or a catchy harmony will soon overtake it in the song for a moment before reverting back to the original riff for a while. Ultimately this approach of peppering in melodic hooks between semi-brutal or thrashy riffs is highly successful.

If I had to draw a comparison for this band, I would say they remind me a lot of Edge of Sanity, a band I’ve always enjoyed immensely because of the way they mix the sound of traditional death metal with extremely catchy melody. Intestine Baalism do a lot of those same types of things. They don’t look for the chugging groove like the more brutal bands from the Japanese scene, but instead go for those catchy, melodic hooks that make you want to listen to them over and over again.

This particular album’s best moments are undoubtedly the guitar leads. The production, as I said before, is pretty thin, but when the guitar is primed to take off, they become very prominent in the mix by the classic means of a good solid midrange boost. Of course this alters the guitar tone completely and makes it cut through the mix like a hot knife through butter, and given the band’s ability to install catchy melodies in a death metal song, it sounds absolutely beautiful. There are even several guitar solos that I would almost describe as traditional blues only with some fast metal-influenced noodling. Jiro Ito and Seiji Kakuzaki obviously understand their trade, and I wouldn’t hesitate to call them one of the better guitar tandems in death metal right now.

If there is a weak spot in the album, I’d say it was the vocals. It’s not that they’re bad or anything, and believe me they aren’t. They just don’t strike me as having any real unique personality. They’re quite low in the mix, which is probably the main reason that I notice that, but I feel like in a band of this class, Seiji Kakuzaki could probably explore the studio space and try to develop a sound all his own.

Honestly, I feel like my musical tastes sadly have evolved past what I’ve come to understand as being standard melodic death metal. Intestine Baalism is the perfect “next logical step” beyond that. This is melodic death metal with an air of brutality that I just can’t seem to find in many of today’s bands who continue to pursue that style of death metal. I guess you could say this is the natural evolution of melodic death metal, and it sounds terrific.

- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Blackend
- Website: Intestine Baalism MySpace
- Band
- Seiji Kakuzaki: vocals, guitars
- Jiro Ito: guitar
- Katsumasa Yoshida: bass
- Hisao Hashimoto: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Flesh for the Twelfth Omnipotent
- 02. Banquet in the Darkness
- 03. A Curse of Baal
- 04. The Genuine Tone
- 05. Principle of Causality
- 06. Memory
- 07. A Keen
- 08. The Avenger Full of Vengeance on God
- 09. A Knight Appears from the Lake of Blood
- 10. The Planet
- 11. Born but Buried, I Can See the Light