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CENTENARY
Death… The Final Frontier

CDN (2021)
Rating: 8/10

Here’s one of the more interesting extreme metal albums released this year in that this one combines an aggressive Swedish-style of death metal musically, but with a thrashy, rasping vocal attack.

Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Centenary have been around since 2014, the current line-up consists of Stewart St. Cummings (lead vocals), Mike Bradley (rhythm guitar and backing vocals), Matt Cunningham (lead guitar), Jim Albrecht (bass), and newest recruit, Adam Davey (drums) who joined the fray in 2019.

Centenary are on their second full-length release after a demo and an EP, but this one is the first to really grab my attention. The band’s 2019 full-length debut Into The Graveless Beyond was a decent ride, but Death… The Final Frontier takes things up a notch.

The band offers up ten tracks beginning with ‘Entangled In Entrails’ and the variety within the death metal framework is immediately apparent. While the guitar tone suggests that classic Swedish buzzsaw aggression – particularly when the band slows down – the opening strains are more of a death / thrash madness with snappy vocal rasps, but the more guttural, chesty growls soon take over.

It’s an extremely catchy track and full of aggression, but the dual vocal attack really does the album favours. So just when you think a dirty, slow, grinding track such as ‘Liquefied Rot’ may be your standard Entombed / Carnage / Dismember worship, we get a nasty injection of speed and those sneering vocal traits which really do bring an alternative attack to the table.

‘Strangled By The Night’ is a stylish chuggernaut boasting mouldy death metal aesthetics and slower, doomier traits, while another standout tune is the infectious ripping of ‘Malicious Symbiosis’; a frothing, scathing punked-up thrash assault.

Other tracks of note – although all are solid – are closer ‘Slaves From The Grave’ with its cool little film sample dialogue and that fuzzed beginning daubed in melancholy. Meanwhile, ‘Remote Manipulation’ gnashes like a chainsaw tearing into flesh and spitting blood ‘n’ rust.

Elsewhere, ‘The Laughing Death’ hints at a black metal dissonance especially with that icy guitar sound and squawking vocal delivery, while ‘Ceaseless Astral Dirge’ chomps, grinds and brings the percussive talents of Adam Davey to the fore as he clanks to the bludgeoning bass.

If you like a sturdy, chugging Swedish death metal back bone with dashings of diversity on top, then you can’t go wrong with this infectious and snappy sophomore from one of Detroit’s finest acts.

Neil Arnold

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