Sudden Death
Injection of Hate
5.5
I consider it the ultimate irony that so many death metal fans are constantly slagging modern metalcore for its lack of originality and stylistic diversity. I mean, here’s a bunch of people whose primary musical interest is a genre that has maintained a virtually static aesthetic and style for fifteen-odd years getting hot under the collar over a few twentysomethings copping Prayer For Cleansing’s schtick and dropping in the occasional clean part. This isn’t an endorsement of the metalcore boom; I’m just as sick of it as the next guy, but honestly, who the fuck is anyone in metal to single out a specific genre for abuse on the grounds of unoriginality? Furthermore, there’s the glorification of the ‘old school’ (read: anachronistic) that goes on in oh-so-many metal circles. Again, don’t take this to mean I can’t dig old DM, and personally it’s my standing that the old masters smoke most neophytes, but their knobs have been continuously slobbed for the genre’s entire history and it’s been getting a little old for, oh, close to a decade. With a few notable exceptions, the entire death throwback movement—if it can be called a movement instead of simple creative stagnation—has made for a prodigious number of completely dispensable bands. Enter Sudden Death. These guys hail from Italy (not exactly a hotbed of extreme metal), and they’re a textbook example of how utterly nondescript this shit can get.
There’s not a whole lot to say about this album other than that you’ve heard it before. Sudden Death blend Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, Suffocation and a bit of modern deathgrind together into an acceptable but thoroughly featureless paste—sort of a death metal oatmeal. There’s nothing remarkably bad about Injection of Hate. The band is comprised of competent musicians and each of their respective instruments is mixed high enough to be audible, excepting—you guessed it—the bass. There aren’t many notably awkward riffs to be found, either. By the end of Injection of Hate’s brief runtime, though, I wish there had been, because the occasional gravity blast or guitar solo isn’t nearly enough to latch onto. This album is about as interesting as dentist’s office muzak.
Granted, there’s someone out there who’s bound to like this; the band genuinely cares for and enjoys their music and the public’s appetite for knuckle-dragging death metal seems to be bottomless. Pick-squeal devotees aside, though, nobody is likely to remember a single moment of Injection of Hate once the speakers fall quiet.
