MORTICIAN: CHAINSAW DISMEMBERMENT

SCORE: 70/100

Mortician's second album leans heavily into horror elements, with disturbing vocal samples and heavy sounds that make the 28-tracked album feel both ambitious and full of an unmistakable level of grit. The instrumentals are fast and incredibly violent from the second the music starts, with sharp guitars and harsh drumming that feel like a musical dagger at every turn.

The genre title of brutal death metal fits this album even better than anyone could ever possibly expect. It's heavy and distorted with a level of grit and power I have yet to hear from any other album; the sound is crisp and sharp while still being muddy due to the sheer intensity of everything coming together - and if one album could be described as a huge punch to the face, this would be it. 

It's a simply horrific album in every way possible. The sound is loud and completely unapologetic to an extreme degree, the vocals are muddled and almost unmanageably unintelligible, and this album produces a sound so mind-bogglingly fast you'll wonder how they pull it off. The drumming in particular on this album makes the sound what it is, with fast, almost gunshot-esque hits of the drums that will make your ears ring if you listen too closely. If you like one song off of this album, chances are you will like every song with the similarities that they all share. The sampling and horror elements make for breaks between songs that break the album up to prevent it from feeling too bloated, and everything comes together very well into one heavy pile that screams at you with every step.

The band took samples from horror movies both popular and more obscure to make this album feel like one loud horror fest that is wonderfully catered to any fans of brutal death metal. The power and energy of the album is intense and constant - with little to no rest time between songs before you are tossed right back into the violent moshpit that is 'Chainsaw Dismemberment' - just try to leave in one piece.

Unfortunately for 'Chainsaw Dismemberment', this album feels like it has more quantity than quality as the songs sound very similar and the lack of variety makes the sound somewhat tired very early on. The fast sound is almost overwhelming when done in big batches like this - and it's why shorter albums with low-length songs and few tracks make this genre work better than long & ambitious ones like this. It's still largely worthwhile for any fans of more extreme death metal, but the huge lack of variety does make this album feel like it could've been better had it switched up just a bit more throughout its 28 track runtime. 

It's a little too much at times and it feels too loud for too long to really be that sustainable of a listening experience, but it's worthwhile for what it is - and it's a damn impressive album. The fact that this was released in the 90s makes it that much more impressive all in all, and it's a very solidly entertaining metal album that gets the job done very well.

This album would be enough to send anyone who doesn't like metal down a completely horrific spiral due to the nature of the entirety of this album - and it feels like it's one not for the faint of heart. It's a bit overbearingly weighed down at times due to how the songs sound the same (in most cases) and how loud/abrasive it is, but this is one hell of an introduction to a genre.