Posts Tagged ‘Peaceville Records’

Album of the day: Autopsy – Macabre Eternal

Posted on Monday, June 13th, 2011

Lovingly pinched from: OneMetal.com: Legends. I’d like to leave it there, frankly – if you know anything at all about death metal, you’re more than aware of how essential Autopsy are to the entire scene – but Phil won’t let me write reviews containing only one word, the bully. So, I suppose I had better tell you a bit about Macabre Eternal.

The only possible bad thing about this record’s existence is the fact that it sees the definite demise of Abscess, Reifert and co’s post-Autopsy outfit – their brand of hardcore punk-influenced death metal was pretty unique and just as important in its own way, but sadly overlooked by many. After years of Reifert denying that Autopsy would ever reform, they recorded two all-new tracks for the 2009 reissue of Severed Survival, causing a mass simultaneous erection among death metal fans of Guinness World Record scale and much talk about the possibility of more new material. Well, we got an EP last year – The Tomb Within – which it’s fair to say was far from the band’s best work, but given that the band had also promised us a full album I was cautiously optimistic that they’d see us right.

See us right is exactly what they did – Macabre Eternal is a masterful recap of everything that gave Autopsy their much-revered status. Death metal likes to think it has moved far beyond the primitive roar of the early scene, what with all the ‘gravity blasts’ and other technical fripperies it’s picked up along the way, but the fact remains that when you absolutely have to destroy a venue, old school is the one true way to do it and as possibly the overall masters of classic death metal, I’d lay money on Autopsy being high on anyone’s list of “bands most likely to liquidise punters”.

Their brand of horror-soaked doomy battering set them apart in the early days and influenced a whole raft of bands that followed, but nobody does it quite like them still – there’s an innate humour laced through their stuff that a lot of their copiers miss altogether, almost as if they’ve taken it too seriously. I know, I know, shocker, right? As if death metal could EVER be accused of taking itself too seriously.

Continue reading: Autopsy – Macabre Eternal – REVIEW : OneMetal.com.

Tags: Album of the day, Autopsy, Chris Reifert, Death Metal, OneMetal, OneMetal.com, Peaceville Records, Rob McAuslan
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