In the world of heavy music there are few bands who can claim a legacy as rich as Autopsy and their pioneering sound has resonated though the years, influencing everyone from Entombed to Cannibal Corpse. However, the realm of death metal offers no quarter and bands must be on point, and all the time; there are no excuses for below par albums, and it is a creed Autopsy have lived by since their formation in 1987. Album number nine finds the band more blood-thirsty than ever, and still leaving a trail for others to follow.
If you are going to play death metal, then play it properly, and this is a remit that Autopsy fulfil. When it comes to terrorising the listener, this quartet don’t mess around and opening cut ‘Rabid Funeral’ assaults our eardrums like a saw cutting through bone; there’s no preliminaries or fancy introductions and this makes the circular riff all the more volatile. It’s only been a year since their last record, and in many ways Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts feels like a continuation of that release. Autopsy are still bang in the groove and like a well-oiled (killing) machine, they go straight for the throat; the vocals are tortured screams of pain, while the drums beat an insane tattoo and ensure that they march to their own beat.
Autopsy’s longevity is surely due to their expansive sound, and as propagators of the whole death doom genre their legacy as assured, yet they still evidence some of that pioneering spirit. Unafraid to throw anything in the pot (as long as it is extreme) ‘Throatsaw’ is a blood-soaked blast of grindcore (that sounds exactly like a throatsaw) and wouldn’t sound out of place on the latest Napalm Death album. If a song is called ‘Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts’ you should have an idea what it entails (or should that be entrails?) and this number doesn’t disappoint. It immediately gets its hands dirty with some switchblade riffs and a haunting conclusion, and if you listen late at night, be sure to keep the lights on.
This is an album that segues nicely between all out thrashers and more doomy cuts, and its symptomatic of this whole album; like a hall of mirrors, it fractures and reflects itself by using heavy sections to highlight the lithe, and light to enhance the dark. However, such is the heart-attack inducing nature of ‘Death Is The Answer’ that I suggest you keep a defibrillator handy, and its sheer veracity only serves make the Sabbath-like dirge that is closer ‘Coagulation’ all the more colossal and crushing. Such is its all-encompassing nature of this closer that it makes the silence that follows all the more deathlike, yet there’s never been a better way to embrace the darkness.
While it is certainly true you can’t judge a book by a cover (or an album by its sleeve), that which houses Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts promises much blood, gore and carnage, and Autopsy deliver it in style.
- Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts is released via Peaceville on 29th October 2023.
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Track List:
- Rabid Funeral
- Throatsaw
- No Mortal Left Alive
- Well Of Entrails
- Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts
- Bones To The Wolves
- Marrow Fiend
- Toxic Death Fuk
- Lobotomizing Gods
- Death Is The Answer
- Coagulation
