Mixing brutal, technical death metal with classical elements, Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse exploded onto the scene last year with their debut full length player, Oracles (if you have yet to hear it, do yourself a favor and buy it now). Thankfully, the band isn’t letting us forget about them in 2010, unleashing arguably the best EP of the year in the form of Mafia.

Consisting of three full new songs, a cover and an instrumental piece, Mafia might be the most intense 23 minutes of music of 2010. With the percussive back bone of ex-Hour of Penance’s member Francesco Paoli delivering throttling blast beats, the three new tracks are blisteringly intense with opener “Thru Our Scars” literally exploding from the speakers with the bands patent injections of classical music and insanely fast arpeggios. Heck, they even deliver some falsetto vocals for a change up. The band’s use of classical injections is utilized perfectly once again. Rather than over the top levels of Scrambled Defuncts insanity, they’re used more in transition as heard on the album’s 7-minute centerpiece “Abyssal” (based on Sicilian Mafia mob member Toto Riina). The transition at the end of the song into the utterly savage “Conspiracy of Silence” (even with more clean vocals) is simply epic.

The cherry on top of this little EP (the 3-minute classical, instrumental/piano title track not withstanding) is a simply brutal take on At The Gates’ classic track, “Blinded by Fear”. After the immediately recognizable opening sample and quote, Fleshgod Apocalypse tear into the rack with a feral blast beat ridden abandon, that is skin peelingly, ‘holy fuck’ intense. The ending title track is an appropriately placed refrain to a killer little EP that shows Fleshgod Apocalypse are not a gimmick based one trick pony. Mafia EP is a nice little tech death appetizer before the new Decrepit Birth drops.

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