Admittedly, I checked out Mutilatred‘s album based on the name, having snickered to myself, “Music is truly running out of band names”.  This is no cut on the band because we have certainly passed the point of peak band name in the same way that geological research has declared for oil.  Rather, it’s interesting to see band’s stretch their creativity and scrape a name together from the thesaurus wasteland of left over medical words and clever spelling.  Not bad guys, you even kept it to one word.  My snickering stopped at the sight of the well done album art: a detailed, and layered anatomical display of some poor women.  Instead of just “checking it out”, I listened straight through.  Mutilatred shoved a hook into my clavicle and pulled me into their make-shift, home dissecting chamber.

Mutilatred is brutal, but not quite so blurry, or almost atonal in the style of Gutteral Secrete or later Disgorge (US).  There’s more to hang on to here perhaps in part due to the meaty, deep, but defined production.  The riffs are largely rhythmic grooves.  In a sense similar to that of many heavy or metallic hardcore bands, but this is NOT “deathcore”.  Occasionally tech riffs crop up, and the most melody you’ll find on Dissecting Your Future is the hand full of times when the guitar shifts to quick melodic tremolo part, but neither last long.  Even more sparingly interspersed are these sort of sharp, angular, bright harmonic pinch riffs.  A trick that instinctively reminds me of a certain style of 90’s/early 00’s hardcore.  The snare tone is very crisp with a quick decaying bright pop.  Again, I know this sound from 90’s hardcore records and I think these details are a nice difference for a death metal album.

You might notice the 13 song length and assume listening to this is potentially a slog.  Instead, it’s another factor I appreciate.  Mutilatred get right to business because the average song length is about 2 minutes.  You get your fix and get the hell out but, should you decide to stick around a bit, the near requisite ambient/atmospheric track is combined with their last song for one 15 minute piece as “Exploded Veins”.  It’s actually an interesting piece anchored by a distorted piano pounding and other ambient sounds that would do just well over the intercom at the previously mentioned machine shop.  Placing it anywhere else in the sequence would’ve murdered the quite brisk overall pace of the record.

Reading their bio, the band resides in Toledo, OH.  Having rust belt mid-west roots explains why, even when the pace picks up and the drums are blasting, the music is rigid with focused intent.  Like a machinist working some pneumatic hammer press.  BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM…until the steel plate submits to the desired shape.  Hours after the second shift whistle blows the machinist treats his unfortunate victims with the same unwavering vigor.  Continuing through the band bio I find the evidence to justify my comparisons thus far: Mutilatred‘s ranks feature a few fellows that were in Premonitions Of War; namely Patrick Meyers, and Nick Hale.  I might add that Nick Hale was also a late member of Burnt By The Sun, coming on for their last record.  This triggers nostalgia in me, and I’m taken back to the mid-aughts.  Premonitions Of War toured regularly in the region, and were a staple at the local metalcore/hardcore shows that I frequented then.  Taken place at a suburban Legion Hall (where else right?), they were often the most burly band on the nights bill.  It was apparent that they were channeling death metal, grind, and sludge; Not just other metalcore bands as so many did in that era.

Dissecting Your Future reminded me that pure enjoyment and entertainment should not be dismissed by us music fanatics. Especially within the realm of metal which has a reputation for self-serious music and fans.  This record isn’t the most brutal, or technical, or genre transcending.  But who cares, it delivers the goods.  The never ending search for “important” records can be exhausting.  Does there always need to be a thesis level reason why you like a particular record?  My answer is that when I played it loudly in the living room my reaction was something close to, “Shit.  Yeah.  This slams”.

[Visit the band's website]

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