onsdag 16 december 2020

Iron Flesh - Summoning the Putrid

 So here we have the second and newest release from the French death metal band Iron Flesh, my previous experience with the band was from the two first ep´s where i had the honor to do the artwork to & logo. They where solid promising heavy (and groovy) old school death metal which included inspiration from different "schools" the Swedish among others....But i had not heard their first full album so i listen to that before i started to digest the new one so i could review it as good as i could.

What i found on the first album was a continuation of what i expected but better as an whole then....i got a little confused hehe as songs like Red Sky Aeon had a very Iron Maiden style riffing (but tuned more in deadly fashion) it worked but was lite odd but i understand when writing a full length one dont want to fall into traps like repeating the same formulas and become boring and such so one try to think outside the box (or coffin in this case hehe) so i get why they include stuff like this then on the next to last track of the first album the intro is a kind of clean singing reminiscent of some D&D heavy metal band and here also the guitar part reminds me of something to find in nwobhm bands but with death metal growl vocals.

So going into the new album i was prepared for death metal but with inclusions like mentioned above.

It starts off in a nice action packed ugly death metal banger that get your taste for intestines come back ! 

And the follow up has some of the bands best riffs och compositions, headbanging in Entombed style (getting a feel like i get on the Uprising album) Good stuff! 

And the third track Demonic Enn  is also one of the bands best songs, really heavy chugging riffs that takes your inner visions to fields of zombies dragging themselves forward slowly towards your impending doom, as the band said themselves "We recently played this new track live and Magick happened instantly, one our favorite track to play live !"  I can totally see that.

Fourth song is a banger too and picks up the speed again and here the "outside the box" inspirations start to pop up like some Maiden like guitar parts, works neat though.

Next one even includes some dark spoken words that reminds me of Type O Negative(well not THAT deep as Pete but still)  hehe,  the tracks wanders around a bit around this part and the shouted vocals sounds more like the band shouts together the lyrics...this "group shouting/mixing" will be quite common during the rest of the album, this type of vocals reminds me a bit of some modern hardcore like Gallows (post Frank era) Even som music towards the end where the slower and heavier songs takes place reminds me of some bleak doomy hardcore...this is not a bad thing for me even if i feel the pure death metal atmosphere gets lost (that was in the start of the album)...... Could one call this a crossover band, perhaps not really but if the bands goes more and more towards this direction i personaly would class them as crossover band, then again if thats a good or a bad thing its up to you.

Heavy, bleak but same time bleeding emotions i pick up in the feelings conveyed here, like i can picture me that during live gigs the audience will shout along and embrace that unity of epic emotions.  

In the end this album contains some of the best material the band has done but also some of the songs that  leave the pure death metal arena and tries new things. (for the bands past sound i mean)

So i would say this is the best release from them from a creative point of view as they really put in work and evolved further into their own future, at one time i thought to my self if some songs here could be classed as melo-death? Dont know as i dont activly listen to that genre but some parts/songs/compositions have a very melancholic (but not so dark really either to be called depressing) melodic sound and not just ugly rotten death vibes.

All in all this is a good album, a good piece of metal for sure.

Oh and that cover art by the ever great Skaðvaldur is awesome  but the putrid rotten look (and title) suits for the first songs really the best but then again one cant have more then one cover for a release  heheh so i understand why they went with this piece.

Track list:

1.     Servants of Oblivion     03:20      
2.     Relinquished Flesh     03:23      
3.     Demonic Enn     04:46      
4.     Purify Through Blasphemy     03:44      
5.     Cursed Beyond Death     04:03      
6.     Death and the Reaper's Scythe     08:06      
7.     Incursion of Evil     03:57      
8.     Thy Power Infinite     03:16      
9.     Convicted Faith     06:21      
      Total:  40:56     

Released by: Great Dane Records

https://www.greatdanerecs.com/eshop/web/

 Band link:

https://ironflesh.bandcamp.com/ 



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