Dismember

Sure I’ve made a Dismember joke or two in the past, but now that there’s no way they could possibly imitate what Entombed are up to (who could? Hell, who can even figure out what label they’re on?), I was curious to check out Where Ironcrosses Grow. And what a fun surprise it was indeed to enjoy a Dismember album this much. Their eighth release, and first in nearly four years, this disc is chock full of dense death metal filled with (get this!) near-memorable hooks, riffs and choruses. It’s not quite what you might call death’n’roll, were you in the market for saying really stupid things, but it’s close; the band doesn’t bother with the death metal stereotypes and focuses on just shredding. There’s a bit of melody, the singer isn’t belching tar the whole time; there are points where it almost sounds like they’re having fun! And there’s that one part that for some reason reminds me of Kiss, but that’s pushing it a bit. All told, a solid release from one of Sweden’s longest-running death metal institutions, a release that proves they’re above the cookie monster hordes any day of the week.