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FLESH CONSUMED
Hymn For The Leeches

Sevared (2018)
Rating: 7/10

A weary churchyard bell toll and eerie phantasmal growls signal the start of the latest release from brutal death metallers Flesh Consumed. After reforming in 2005, these gore-mongers have very much put themselves on the murder map with a brace of EPs, and in equal measure two albums which emerged in 2008 (…Mutilate, Eviscerate, Decapitate…) and 2010 (Ecliptic Dimensions Of Suffering) .

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind some of this stuff but the grinding, hectic style of such an act – even with their slower, twisted moments of butchery – can tend to wear thin if overdosed on, and yet with Hymn For The Leeches I was ready to dive in and experience some of that punishing technicality.

Flesh Consumed – hailing from Santa Cruz in California – is not a band that tries to sound old, or miserable or relevant. In fact, their sound is spewed straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, the posse dabbling with what I’d describe as effective modern death metal but with huge dollops of Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Gorguts etc. thrown in. Y’know the sort of noise I mean, which one moment hammers away like an out of control nail gun, and the next those slow, drooling vocal burps caress a brooding, churning wall of sickness. Then we’re into a maze of epileptic drum flicks, spasmodic bass trundles and frenzied soloing which weaves itself from the mire of gurgling riffage.

There’s no doubting the heaviness, but it’s not a nostalgic weight. Vocalist Corey Athos offers up those grindcore death grunts perfectly and the axe attack provides numerous dobs of intricacy and battery, but maybe for those not well versed in such an audible atrocity they may soon get into the mind-set that all the tracks begin to bleed into one. You’d be wrong though, because the more you listen, the more you’re likely to get dragged into this grind of heavy machinery as the combo bludgeons hard, flirting occasionally with a Deicide-styled battery only with extra thick layers and solo blusters that would give Slayer’s Kerry King a run for his money when it comes to blood frenzy.

Personally – and it’s the way I’ve felt with every Flesh Consumed album – I think more and shorter songs would have been better, as some tracks tend to drag just slightly at whatever speed they employ. The whole fuckin’ thing rumbles, boils and runs like a well-oiled and devastating machine, though; slower passages toy with Devourment ideologies, while nippier traits wink at Deeds Of Flesh and again Gorguts and the likes. So, there’s plenty of influence here.

Flesh Consumed exist as a meat-grinder that has thrown numerous bands into the mixer for its own pleasure, but it is the sort of record that – for me, anyway – will only appeal to a certain crowd. That would be that mob of upstarts I rarely see at gigs performed by old school death metal acts, suggesting a clan specially crafted for this dynamic and contemporary deluge of drudgery. That’s no crime considering how many excellent bands (Dying Fetus et al) that have emerged through the scene.

Flesh Consumed’s third outing is very much a ruthless tirade that in spite of its fierce structures and flirts with complexity, is at times a tad predictable but still belligerent all the same.

Neil Arnold

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