Fogcrawler
Welcome To Your Suffering
6.8
Oh Wisconsin's Fogcrawler, with your backwards masked Evil Dead sounding introduction, where were you with your chugging death metal talents when I needed you? For a minute there, I was reminded of the time where I was in the UK for a month and began to question whether or not the entire set of islands was full of unattractive women, or if I had just become totally asexual. Only this time, it was happening with music - something as equally detrimental.
Their first album definitely could draw comparisons to some of the slam/death bands like Dying Fetus or Internal Bleeding at times due to a lot of the breaks and flair on the guitars. Favoring a low throaty and gruff growl, Fogcrawler rise a few notches in my book by using some fantastic higher scratchy vocals in all the right places. "Brain Plagued" has a decent descending/ascending riff that'd work better with faster drumming, but the transition into the main riff is acceptable. Later, their track, "Tension" begins with an ethereal introduction and progresses with competent brutality, a technical and spastic chorus, and a classy as well as talented solo. With a punishing guitar/drum combo initially, "Occupational (Work) Disillusionment (Sucks)" stands out immediately and stays on top of their game with groovy rhythm work at a sluggish tempo.
All in all, as the previous five reviews I've done will tell you, I've heard worse. But just because this doesn't suck doesn't mean I'm going to let Welcome To Your Suffering off lightly. Thankfully, it does mean that giving them a decent score and a recommendation to continue what they're doing comes much easier, although there is room for improvement. Not necessarily something you need to strive to find, but a solid debut which shouldn't be passed up if it happens to show up in your area.
