Review of The Body Beneath - Compelled To Suffer

Synopsis:

A meaty slab of proficient, competent, if slightly redundant, technical death metal that most will call deathcore.

Review:

Featuring former Metal Review scribe Nick Kulczycki on guitars, Minnesota’s The Body Beneath are one of those young acts that are plying a form of US styled death metal based heavily in the Floridian style, but due to their age, moniker, cover art and vocals, the naysayers will simply pass them off as another crumbling deathcore act. However, in truth the band has more in common with the likes of Job For a Cowboy, The Concubine, Diskreet, The Faceless, Animosity and Despised Icon than the usual growl/breakdown/growl style of many of their Myspace-raised peers.

The fact is, The Body Beneath are pretty skilled, and with some honing of their songwriting skills, and provided the genre holds up, could make some noise. They don’t rely on breakdowns but instead some classic tech death metal lurches amid the shuddering, heaving complexity that’s surprisingly deft for such a young act.

The seven relatively direct bursts are short, sharp stands of no frills death metal with ample blasts, squealing, mostly melody-less solos and growled screamed vocals of Eric Keyes, who is the main reason the more negative folks will lump this in with deathcore, as he sounds like a hardcore vocalist with a little more bite. However, try listening to tracks like “Serve the Server”, the lurching “Inseminating Hate” and swirling “Spiritual Exile.” The only annoyance being the contrived few minutes of silence that closes otherwise solid and choppy closer “Viral Concubine”. C’mon guys, that’s just lame.

Otherwise, this solidly produced and skillfully played debut is a promising little EP of modern US death metal (take that as you will) that, if the group can stay together and focused on the death metal side of things, should earn some attention and a bigger label deal.

Release Details

The Body Beneath

Compelled To Suffer

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