Broken Hope

Broken Hope have always been perceived as Cannibal Corpse's redneck cousins who ensconced themselves in a digital studio to churn out album after album of gore soaked death metal. That's what they are. The skeletons & fire cover art and the soothing sentiment behind ditties like "Chemical Castration," "Necro Fellatio" and "Razor Fuck" only serves to foreshadow more of BH's generic, technical style and the fact that they continually threaten to collapse the golden years of the second wave of death metal. Why does the offbeat nature and upper register abuse of the leadoff track, "Wolf Among Sheep," recall the Dillinger Escape Plan? What's up with all the tempo variety? The discordant chords? Just when did this band become so listenable? Sure, there's a lot of bad death metal seeping from the wound, but Grotesque Blessings is a marked improvement. Too bad rumours of the band's demise accompanied this improvement.