New Jersey’s Fit For An Autopsy got on my radar back when they started in 2008, as they initially featured one of my favorite vocalists of the era, vocalist Nate Johnson from very short lived deathcore act Deadwater Drowning as well as noise-mongers Premonitions of War.

Even after Johnson left, Ive purchased all the albums, listened to and enjoyed them, but they have never really risen to an elite level as say Whitechapel, even with solid releases in 2015s Absolute Hope, Absolute Hell and 2017s The Great Collapse (which does however feature the fucking killer track “Hydra”), and now the big time jump to Nuclear Blast.

And that appears to ring true for the latest album, The Sea of Tragic Beasts, a solid modern deathcore/metalcore album that takes some chances with pacing and clean vocals (I’d compare to Parkway Drive‘s change or Whitechapel’s stint a few albums ago), but one that isn’t as purely heavy or memorable as some of their peers, even with 2019s relatively strong comeback for metalcore and deathcore.

That said there some solid moments on the album that got me bouncing pretty good, typically when they deliver a full on mid paced djenty chug or breakdown as opposed to more urgent metalcore blasts and some of the clean vocals, which didn’t work for me.  The likes of  “Mirrors”, “Shepard”, “Your Pain Is Mine” and personal favorite “Warfare”, deliver some blazing,  stomping deathcore/djent  moments  that will please genre-philes, . But there is quite a bit of other slower, introspective stuff that takes away a lot of the album’s bite (again think Parkway Drive), as “Unloved”, “Mourn”, “Birds of Prey”, and especially closer “Napalm Dreams”, might also turn those same folks off a bit, and there is nothing as crushing as the aforementioned “Hydra” here.

Ultimately, this album is just a shade heavier than As I Lay Dying‘s surprisingly good new effort, so those looking for something a bit heftier should look to the likes of Bound by Fear, Distant or the new Despised Icon.

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