Decomposed
Torn From The Womb
5.8
Upon initial listens, and the cover, one might think Philadelphia’s Decomposed are a fairly run of the mill gore grind/death metal band delivering the expected array of visceral blasts, guttural growls and such in the vein of any United Guttural release, but in the middle of opener “Unholy Pleasures” a terrific almost prog or power metal arpeggio solo appears and blows the track wide open. And that pretty much sets the standard for the next seven tracks.
While their bludgeoning, cartoonish take on gore/grind/brutal death metal is par for the course in its sloppy, gooey, gore drenched glory, (think Lividity, Malignancy, Devourment, Dehumanized, Defeated Sanity, Disavowed and any number of “D” bands, but with a thrashier, less chaotic lean) the injection of the initially out of place solos elevate the music a tad. That’s not saying this is a worldbeater of an album-at only 24 minutes and with a really sterile production and rather ineffective vocals--it isn’t, but admittedly those solos do add ‘something’ to tracks like “Inspired By Horror”, “Anticipating Death”, “Slave to Existence” and standout “Dismembered and Molested,” like Decomposed brought in Ralph Santolla or Dave Suzuki to perform them, but they are courtesy of their own guitarist, Ian Volmer. However, don’t go in expecting a Dechristianize or Stench of Redemption as Decomposed is nowhere near that league just yet--though I will be watching them.
But without the solos admittedly straightforward tracks like “Condemned to Hatred”, “Butcher the Innocent” and groove heavy “Disembowled” are fairly standard, predictable, growl, blast, groove affairs that lie somewhere between NYDM and Texas DM, but never really excel in either style. Still, the solos do make things interesting now and again and raise the album from the slop of the genre, making for some unexpectedly melodic tangents amid the carnage.
