Immersed in Blood
Killing Season
5.8
What we have here is a blood-dipped and deep gore fried slab of crusty Swedish retro-style death/grind heavily influenced by Entombed’s overdriven guitar tone, Deranged’s drum patterns and structure, and some Cryptopsy squeals flying about. Drumming heavily dominates this disc from beginning to end. The kick production is booming and ruthless, while the snare is crisp & tight. The style reminds me of Cryptopsy’s Whisper Supremacy not in speed, technicality, or variation, but because the drumming mercilessly pounds the rest of the music, thus establishing its tyranny and challenging guitars and bass to keep up to the standards it sets. And holy balls are these guitars ever crunchy. More so than a frozen stick of peanut brittle. Like Deranged, it’s fun to listen to because it’s a style not extremely prevalent in metal today, but after the first 3 or 4 songs you can put full trust in your judgment of what the rest of the album is going to be like. A cool sound and killer display of percussion is heard on “Killing Season”, but if you’re only moved by progressive death w/ dizzying technicality and stellar leadwerk, then look elsewhere because you’ll get bored w/ this. Bloodbath “adopted” the old-school crunch and crafted some decent songs w/ it. Some were memorable, some not. But Immersed in Blood takes the crunch and leaves a scorched path of obliteration similar to many crust-core grind bands, basically melding 1 gigantic song w/ the album. A fun listen for every now & then, but lack of quality riffing & song distinction prevent it from sinking its claws in and securing a spot in heavy rotation.
