Godless – Centuries of Decadence

“Centuries of Decadence” is the debut release from India’s Godless, a death metal band on Transcending Obscurity. This EP offers up 4 tracks of solid, albeit predictable death metal. The band’s approach is largely straight forward, though they take some nods from the brutal death metal subgenre (notably the occasionally mechanical sounding drums, and the ability to deliver some seriously crushing mid-paced sections). The quality of riffs all throughout the release is high, though there is nothing particularly unique. One nice surprise comes on “Infest”, where the band injects some melody amidst their more typical aggressive sound. This song may not be overly fast, but it does have some cool things going on.

In direct contrast to the opener, “Ossuary” offers up much more speed. It does have some grooves in it later on, but the overall tempo is high enough to satisfy all death metal fiends. Much like most of this EP, “Ossuary” is an instance of taking an established formula and putting it to good use. Even the band’s vocalist has a fairly standard growl, though to his credit, it is extremely deep and well executed. 

The remaining songs on the EP are more of the same: good riffs, impressive drumming, and solid songwriting. While Godless certainly won’t win any awards for being the most inspired band around, their music is more than good enough to throw on and headbang to. It is astounding how much decent metal comes out of India, and props to Transcending Obscurity for transcending the obscurity to find it!

Be sure to check out and like Godless on Facebook!

Highlights

"Infest"

"Ossuary"

Final Rating

3.6/5 or 72%. 

Written by Scott

Gutslit – Skewered In The Sewer

From the surprisingly metal-abundant country of India comes Gutslit and their hilariously titled debut album, “Skewered In The Sewer”. As you may have guessed from the album cover and band name, these guys join the legions of bands playing the most brutal death metal around. It’s no secret that this is a tough genre to play; most bands sound exactly the same and have no variation, but luckily, Gutslit do everything right to make “Skewered In The Sewer” an enjoyable release. In general, the formula for making great brutal death metal is diversity and pacing. At 26 minutes, this release has the latter down, but it also has plenty of variation. Songs can go from insanely technical tapping leads into huge slams, into blast-beat-laden moments that are followed by crazy pinch harmonics. The tempos vary considerably to accommodate the different feel of each section, but overall, this is definitely a fast release.

The vocalist of this release is on the more impressive side of this subgenre. There are no obvious gurgles that I picked out, and the style of gutturals as a whole is pretty old-school (it would fit right in line with some of Chris Barnes’ early work). He also has the ability to hit higher notes when necessary, but generally sticks with his lower range. From a memorability standpoint, “Skewered In The Sewer” is right in line with other brutal death metal. There’s not a single riff that will really shock you because of either its uniqueness or its sheer awesomeness, but I’ve come to expect nothing more from the subgenre. In this regard, the variation definitely helps to deal with the monotony that usually occurs due to a lack of memorability. 

One aspect of this album that definitely helps it is the production, and, in particular, the drum sound. A lot of brutal death suffers from having a high, pingy snare drum, but the kit of the drummer of Gutslit has a much more organic sounding snare. It’s definitely pretty tight sounding, but it almost sounds like they didn’t do much production work at all and just rolled with the natural sound of the drum. Unfortunately, however, that’s pretty much the only drum you’ll hear during the majority of the fills. That is really the only major gripe I have with this album though. For a sound that is not among my favourites, Gutslit managed to deliver an impressive release that is enjoyable from start to finish. This album should be heard both by fans of brutal death metal and fans of other styles of metal looking to give this sound a shot.

Be sure to check out and like Gutslit on Facebook!

Highlights

All of it

Final Rating

4.0/5 or 80%. 

Written by Scott