Out of print for years, Repulsive Echo’s, Kostas has brought us back both releases from Toledo Ohio’s Gutted.  Gutted were a death metal band who had some hype back in the early-mid 90’s.  These reissues are still highly sought after and probably a repressing is in order, because these reissues are difficult to find and are recent. One of the interesting aspects of Gutted were that 3 of the 4 members, later on were all brothers.  The Ditch brothers.  Mark on vocals/bass, Scott on drums and Michael (RIP) on guitar. Sadly Michael passed away 4 years ago from brain cancer.  Regardless, Gutted were a pretty ripping act.  So let’s get into the first part of the review.

Gutted’s debut album, Bleed For Us To Live was released in 1994 on Red Light Records.  Red Light were picking up all the brutal death metal acts and Gutted were pushed with this album, a lot.  Their ads were all over the place.  When I was with Internal Bleeding I met them a few times and they were cool and they played really heavy live sets.  One of the things Gutted did were write longer than average death metal songs.  While most death metal bands on average would write 3-4 minute tunes, Gutted pushed the song length upwards to 5 – 6 minutes.  Gutted also did not utilize blast beats as much as bands were doing back then.  They had the blasts, but they were never super-fast.  Gutted also were not afraid to have the bass guitar mixed in really well, something a lot of death metal bands did not always mix in well on the albums.  Rounding out Gutted was Billy Mills on guitars as well.

Album opener “Bleed” is truly a monstrously heavy number.  The bass guitar adds such an excellent element to their sound.  Well-placed guitar solos and some killer and devastating grooves towards the end of the song really make this a great and catchy track.  “Nailed to the Cross” has that killer heavy bass guitar right in the beginning before the isolated guitar riff and monstrous growl-chest collapsing! Gutted did have a lot of Cannibal Corpse influence to their sound, but since I was and still am a huge CC fan, it was always a bonus for me.  The reissue sadly does not bolster the sound with a remaster.  Issue resolved when I spoke with Kostas.  He stated they attempted to remaster the album but the sound began detracting from the heaviness.  When listening to the album, the production still holds up today-it’s really one of the heaviest productions to come out from that era-so I see what he is saying.  The booklet layout is beautiful.  Opens as a poster with lyrics, pictures, rough hand written lyrics, as examples of the band finishing lyrics and vintage band flyers.  Bleed For Us To Live is one of the catchiest death metal albums and still holds its weight today.  True organic brutality, with still one of the coolest old-school album covers.

In 1997 the self-titled Gutted album was released and it was more of a comp.  Had some new songs recorded a few years prior and included an early demo.  “Suffer in Exile” was one of the new songs and the heaviness was even more apparent and at this point Gutted were just made up of the Ditch brothers.  Keep it in the family I always say.  “Mask of Sanity” was vicious and some guitar solos which were eerily similar sounding to that of James Murphy.   The song just punishes and the organic heaviness is so real and in your face.

This reissue slaps together the Disease demo songs as well the Into The Gates of Insanity demo.  In total the reissue has 14 songs-total bang for your buck.  Parts of this reissue have been cleaned up a bit, with respect to sound and clarity.  The album cover was recreated and some great layout work with the cd.  The new album cover-hmmm..kind of on the fence with how I feel about it.  Has a female ghost extracting the life of some dude passed out.  The booklet layout has lyrics and pictures, adds and it was cool to see the 1995 Michigan Death Fest, in there.  We played that with Gutted and all the band logos adorn the flyer.  Nice picture of Michael Ditch, paying respect to his passing.  So yes-do whatever you can to get these reissues.  Keep Gutted’s name alive-these are killer death metal releases needing to be in your collection at once.

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