The list of technical death metal bands who keep trying to push the boundaries of the genre keep growing and growing. With acts such as Nile, Decrepit Birth, Origin, Spawn of Possession, Beneath the Massacre, Deeds of Flesh, Psycroptic, The Faceless, and Brain Drill releasing killer CD's over the last year or two, there's been lots of outstanding, technical, progressive death metal for the masses to absorb and enjoy. Add another name to that list, California's Severed Savior, whose latest release on Unique Leader is titled Servile Insurrection, an 11-track powerhouse of a CD. Through you can hear influences of their peers here (I detect a certain Nille-meets-Decrepit Birth-meets-Cannibal Corpse mix), the songs stand out on their own, Severed Savior really good at creating short, riff heavy pieces injected with plenty of weaving parts and the occasional solo, whether it be a death metal lead or a mellow jazz lick. They bust out of the gate here with two intense numbers, the pounding "Question" and the intricate "Inverted and inserted", drums and flying riffs combat on the latter while Anthony Trapani delivers some very solid growls. Things don't let up there, "Rewards of cruelty" rampages like a runaway train, Mike Guilbert's guitar a house of fire of crunch-o-rama and complex fills. Even when the band throws a few instrumentals at you, the results are a mixture of chaos and gorgeous jazz, showing the varied talents of the band. You have to love the combination of brutal stomp with manic speed & insane technicality on a track like "Fecalphiliac", which for some might be a bit too over the top, but if you are into dizzying death metal, it will work just fine.
In the end, Servile Insurrection is simply a damn fine technical death metal album, and shows a band that are probably really close to delivering their epic statement and joining the elite in the genre.
Track Listing
01. Question
02. Inverted and inserted
03. Rewards of cruelty
04. Fuck the humans
05. Hemorrhagic gastroenteretis
06. Interval del tradimento
07. Acts of sedition
08. Fecalphiliac
09. Spoils of war
10. Deadspeak
11. Servile insurrection
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