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DEMENTIA 13
Tales For The Carnivorous EP

Escaravelho (2013)
Rating: 7/10

I think it’s fair to say that death metal literally creeps from every crack on this planet. Dementia 13 is a Portuguese trio who plies their trade by belching out heavy old school death metal, heavily influenced by buckets of blood, gore and horror, which is confirmed by the insertion of various film snippets throughout this four-track EP. After all, who is interested in a bunch of death metal mongers writing about peace and love?

With so many bands attempting to recreate old school sounds, Dementia 13 are one of the lucky few who seem to have find the right formula in bringing that authentic early 90s feel back.

The band consists of lead guitarist Marco Silva, rhythm guitarist Álvaro Fernandez and bassist Zé Pedro, who’ve all featured heavily on the Portuguese metal scene, only this time they’ve joined forces and drafted in a few guests – including vocalist Nuno Lima and Switchtense drummer Xinês – and the sound they create will no doubt please fans of a variety of bands, such as Cancer, Autopsy and Malevolent Creation.

For me, Tales For The Carnivorous is about as old school as new school metal gets. The production is tight but not too restrictive, and the sound, while clearly lacking thrills, is often mid-tempo, guttural and surprisingly effective as the band rattle through four heavy numbers. Yet despite this outing clocking in at under 18 minutes, it feels a lot longer, and that’s testament to the band’s ability to absorb the listener within their dirty basement of a record.

The album opener, ‘There Are Those Who Kill Violently’, introduces itself by way of a sample from the 1979 horror flick The Driller Killer, and has hints of old school Gorefest as it rumbles along with those mid-paced chops and deep, dense sounding drums of Xinês. Second up is the speedier ‘Feasting On Your Blood’ which again resorts to that old school crust, at once combining that classic Floridian sound with something more primitive and obscure.

The band rarely resort to technical prowess to impress. In fact, this is such a direct little opus that one could imagine coming across this on cassette back in the late 80s as a tatty demo tape. Sure, thousands of similar sounding bands have come and gone since the inception of Dementia 13, but when this sort of music – like any – is played right, it can at once transport the listener back to those foggy times, but also give us hope that there’s still bands out there who are more than just aping their heroes.

‘Dark Urges’, with its effective opening film sample, hits the skull like a sledgehammer as the crusty riffs and clattering drums hit, and when the solo soars through the air like the squeal of a slaughtered pig, we’re back in that crawlspace among the human remains and chomping rats. ‘Dark Urges’ is a fairly downbeat track, and yet it’s the band’s sludgiest, hinting at Autopsy with a grubbier Slayer dynamic. The finale of the EP comes with the decomposing stench of ‘Brotherhood Of The Flesh’, an uptempo corpse grinder with a sprig of melody amid those rusty guitars and pus-filled bellows.

I’m in admiration for Dementia 13, because I expected this to be a rather dull affair, but I’m glad to have been proven wrong. Now, where’s that axe?

Neil Arnold

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