Beheaded-Ominous Bloodline (2005)

I remember when St. Anger came out back in '03 everyone complained about the snare sound. They said it sounded like a tin can or whatever. 12 year old me said that it sounded pretty cool. At 12 I was listening pretty much exclusively to Metallica; fast forward a couple of years and I was listening to death, grind and some doom here and there, and I discovered the magickal world known as brutal death metal. In this world the snares sound like St. Anger and the kick drums sound like Vulgar Display of Power. I knew I had found the genre for me. In recent years producers have learned how to record brutal death metal, which is a good thing, but the crappy drum sound still gets me all nostalgic.

No record exemplifies what I love about brutal death metal more than Beheaded from Malta's Ominous Bloodline. Clackety kick drums? Check. Tin can snare? Check. Spikey logo? Check. Space battle between a giant ass lightening monster and smaller monsters over what appears to be Trantor? Muthafucking check!

 How could this not be good?

Enough of the superficial aspects: lets get down to the sweet, sweet music. If I ever had to pick the archetype of brutal death, this would probably what I would choose. The blasts are fast, slamz are brutal and the vocalist sounds like Frank Mullen.

The guitars have an awesome dry buzzsaw sound, similar to a clearer, more midrangey Dismember, and the bass is audible. But the real hero on this album is the drummer, Chris Brincat. His drumlines propel and invigorate the riffage; a couple of times a riff is repeated too many times but he switches up his beat and keeps it from getting stale. Compositionally, Bloodline is more complex than its predecessors with many more riffs per song than the previous albums. The songs grab hold of you and accelerate until massive slams drop like a cluster bomb. There's a few weird riffs in there to keep you on your toes and some pretty killer soloz too. In the middle of they album they give us an interlude in the form of Engrish champion "Depths of Sore," a Bolt Throwerish samplefest.

This album if one of the finest in all of brutal death, a masterpiece up there with Effigy of the Forgotten and Path of the Weakening in my book. This CD stayed in my car for several years and only got taken out because I had a broken window and it snowed on my "drivin muzak". If you like brutal fucking death metal then give this a spin.

"Cuz you're Unforgiven threee-eee"