The one-man death metal band just keeps on gaining credibility, the trail having been blazed by the likes of Shawn Whitaker (Insidious Decrepancy), Shaun LaCanne (Putrid Pile), and Peter Hasselbrack (Bloodsoaked). Thirst for Revenge’s Annihilation of Races (Comatose) tickled a few of my fancies as well. Welcome now A.Death, the man responsible for Putrified’s Neurotic Necrotic, a solid musical effort and concept album that is worth checking out.

Lyrically, Neurotic Necrotic tells the story (in the words of A.Death) “of a man who starts to hear voices he cannot see [and] they tell him things and he can’t make them stop and starts to dig up graves from where the voices come.” Are you with us so far? He goes on to state “to make the voice stop he injects the dead with various fluids that make them come alive [and] then the dead starts to walk and try to make their way home to the land of pharoes [sic], etc.” In other words, H.P. Lovecraft inspires yet another warrior of death!

Now for the music. Falling on the groovy, sometimes thrashy side of the death metal line, the songwriting format is of a somewhat conventional variety, although most of the songs are rather short (often in the one to two-minute-plus range). Considering everything connects to create a story, individual track lengths become less relevant. That said, one occasionally gets the feeling that a song would have benefited from a longer duration; maybe not sounding “unfinished,” but coming close to that in a couple of cases.

Think and pummeling, A.Death offers a fair bit of variety too, moving from the compositionally diverse “They Speak” (complete with some ominous Slayer-esque licks) to the 50 seconds of savagery that is “Havoc” to the doomy, southern metal edged “A Chamber of Breath” to the minute-and-a-half of 90s Swede-death called “Behold the Butchered.” Also notable for their death-grooves are the endearingly titled “Temple of Vomit” and the mid-tempo “The Land of the Pharaohs.” Marching instrumental “Await the Slaughter” gets its groove on as well; all 1:16 of it. The dude covers a lot of ground without venturing much outside of extreme realms. A sharp guitar tone and A.Death’s deep, roaring vocal style add value to the mix.

Overall, I like what A.Death has done with Putrified’s Neurotic Necrotic, both musically and conceptually. His attempts at avoiding the one-trick-pony pitfall have for the most part succeeded. While there is no chance of my falling in love with the album; remaining friends is a pretty good bet.

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments