Impaled

Oakland, CA has created quite a metal cult with the likes of Testament, Machine Head, and Forbidden, but extremist fans surely associate the Bay area with puke grinders Exhumed. Last year's Gore Metal album (on Relapse) and the subsequent Contamination Tour with Morgion, Soilent Green and Nasum brought Exhumed's wild 'n' woolly splattercore to the masses. Exhumed bassist Ross Sewage joins Necropolis retail sales rep Raul Varela to continue this trend with an even tighter band by infusing their dense death metal with sparkling guitar solos and surprising melodic interludes. Their disgusting lyrics are aligned with the medical dictionaries of Carcass, but this record (produced by metal celeb James Murphy) is clearly made by and for true metal fans. "Faeces Of Death" has speed sections with high-pitched, Hypocrisy-like vocals, plus low-end, bathtub-drain gurgles. "Trocar" and "Back To The Grave" begin with super samples before they rattle to life with punkish metal snarls. If you can stomach gut-wrenching images that got old with the Cannibal Corpse of yore, then Impaled is definitely worth a perusal from the experienced underground fan.