Listen up, fans of early Gatekeeper, Terminal Nation, Fuming Mouth, Kruelty, Acephalix, Vastum, and Xibalba take fucking note. You need the debut from Arkansas’ Open Kasket in your life, right fucking now!!!

Open Kasket plays a form of meaty, girthy beatdown/hardcore-driven death metal that lumbers and slopes with bad fucking intentions at every turn. With a hefty low end, and gait that culls from the expected Bolt Thrower tropes, Open Kasket does lean a little more into the beatdown Bodysnatcher side of things with the guitar tone, rather than a hm2 tone, like some of their peers. But regardless, the 10-song, 30-minute pummeling will ensure many babies are punched.

Right out of the gate with “Ersatz (Sine Die)” Open Kasket is out to rattle your fillings and bet you around the head and neck area with a monstrous mid-paced intro, and it gets progressively heavier from there, peaking with the likes of “Bruised Sprainstein” “Putrid Existence”, “Defective”, “Chain Whip” and nasty closer “Ripped Up” (even with its introspective final moments). All splattered with equal parts doomy crawl and groove-laden brutality. They can also pick up the pace occasionally, as heard on “Chemical Death” very briefly.

Guest vocal spots on “Internal Threat” (Stan Liszewski of Terminal Nation), “Chain Whip” (Bryson Sherick of Backbiter), and “Chemical Death” (Jackson Edwards of Zashed) complete the utterly bruising affair that has been one of my go to work out albums in early 2024.

[Visit the band's website]

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