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CRANIOTOMY
Supply Of Flesh Came Just In Time

Amputated Vein (2013)
Rating: 6/10

C’mon, admit it, I’m sure you’re all wondering what Craniotomy is? Well, it just so happens to be the surgical procedure of removing a flap of bone from the skull in order to access the brain. Lovely! And believe me, after one listen of this opus you’ll be left feeling as if your brain has been pulled out of your arse.

Craniotomy are a Slovakian death / gore metal band which is the musical equivalent of being eaten alive by a grizzly bear. These brutal metalheads formed in 1998 and the curiously titled Supply Of Flesh Came Just in Time is the band’s fourth platter, emerging a decade after their delightfully titled 2003 full-length debut It’s Not Cut Out – It Can’t Be Eaten.

So, what can we expect from this subtle bunch of extreme metallers? Well, this is about as punishing as the metal genre can get; whether it’s the grinding blast-beats, the trigger drums or the absolutely brutal vocals, it all makes for a rather guttural listen. Thankfully, unlike most surgically inclined gore metal acts, Craniotomy don’t often resort to breakneck speed to batter the listener. Instead, we are subjected to 30 or so minutes of ultra-heavy, dense sounding brutality.

Vocally it’s all very unintelligible, and many thanks must go to Rastislav “Pygo” Váry for some of the deepest growls I’ve heard this side of the very depths of hell. Just what he’s saying we probably don’t want to know, but his throaty grunts are nicely (!) complimented by the equally thick guitars of Roman Halmo, who formed Craniotomy alongside drummer Lukas Siska.

I’ve never had the (dis)pleasure of reading the lyrics to this opus, but judging by song titles such as ‘Vomiting Bloody Pieces Of Undigested Body’, ‘Endless Torture’ and ‘He Torture The Brain With A Drill’ I doubt very much the topics will concern sweetness and light.

Fans of old school gore deathsters Broken Hope will find much to savour amidst the almost doom-laden sludge and pummelling drums, although on the aforementioned ‘He Torture The Brain With A Drill’ the band almost stray into melody with those opening chords, although this hope is soon banished to the pits of gore by a broken bottle to the throat and scalpel to the eyes.

I’m not sure what else I can say to be honest. Craniotomy are very much an acquired taste, inhabiting a distant corner of the metal genre that revels in sickness, seedy surgery and bodily devourment; all of this being reflected in those hideous grunts and gore-soaked rhythms.

Supply Of Flesh Came Just In Time is not for the faint-hearted, and those dressed in medical coats and wielding rusty implements of murder only need apply. Check out the equally sickening 2013 releases from Extermination Dismemberment (Serial Urbicide) and Execrable Divinity (Inanimate Ideological Incipience) for similar bludgeoning.

Neil Arnold

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