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AUTOPSY
Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts

Peaceville (2023)
Rating: 9/10

I do wish the more recent album artwork of Autopsy was better and matched the sweeping sickness of the maniacal sound. I guess there has been something garish and goofy about the look of the last few albums but hey, it doesn’t prevent Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts from being another vile tirade of spewing vocals, rank percussion, disgusting bass and frenzied axe work. And then there are those doomier passages, the dank slime-coated foulness and the general odour of decay as the California combo celebrates another deranged year in business.

With their tenth outpouring of horror, Autopsy excretes 11 bowel-chomping cuts that steamrolls in rabid fashion with the scowling, squirming ‘Rabid Funeral’, a feverish whirlwind that frantically casts off showers of scabs, shards of bone and splashes of crimson. It’s Autopsy at their most frenetic as Chris Reifert pukes out sickening verses while lashing his tongue at his own maggot-infested eye sockets. Then we have a killer breakdown where the guys shift gears but maintain that serrated edge, perfect for gnashing at bone.

‘Throatsaw’ is as demonically ferocious; a fetid punk n’ thrash death frenzy savagely intolerant of trend. The track explodes with the utmost violence; a torrent of spurting blood and splinters of gore as the bass is wielded like a rampant axe, chopping at flailing limbs. As with any Autopsy record though, it’s the thick doomy segments which really appeal to me; damp, swampy gurgles that clog beneath the putrid waves of speed. The riffs twitch like death nerves, reliant on their own spasmodic as the chugging filth of ‘No Mortal Left Alive’ seeps into the morose, aching depths of ‘Well Of Entrails’, which is a big favourite of mine.

Since those early death metal classics – Severed Survival (1989) and Mental Funeral (1991) – Autopsy has never had to reinvent the wheel. Instead, the guys just make sure it clogs and congeals with each successive release. Every track gives us a horror story, one that billows and bulges, whether it’s a violent slasher movie (‘Toxic Death Fuk’) or a downbeat slog dribbling dirt such (‘Coagulation’), but such a brace of songs continue to sum up the dirges the band digs up. ‘Marrow Fiend’ is slow and grim and provides a miserable solo that bursts from the membranous sack like a bubble of ectoplasmic fluid, whereas the title track combines both Black Sabbath-esque silt with maddening vim.

What else is there left to say about Autopsy? Are we running out of superlatives to describe their brand of extreme metal? Probably, so let’s just get to the rating before we settle into another miasmic grave for comfort.

Neil Arnold

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