Year released: 2009
Duration: 43:15
Tracks: 9
Genre: Death Metal
Rating: 4/5
Review online: February 4, 2010
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible Readers Rating
for:
Catacombs of the Grotesque
Rated 4.4/5 (88%) (5 Votes)
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Review
There are, literally, like 11 bands called Denial, so this is the one from Mexico, and I have to say this is most likely the one that will make a splash. Denial play old-fashioned, skull-cracking Death Metal that is clearly descended from the South American school of brutality which spawned bands like Krisiun and The Chasm. SA Death Metal has always fallen somewhere between the hyperactive, superfast Florida sound and the crunch and riff-oriented Swedish tradition. Denial definitely have the crunch down, wielding a muscular guitar sound and using it to drive riffs like nails into your head. There's nothing resembling innovation on this disc, and lineal similarities can be drawn from bands like Asphyx, Carnage, Dismember, Trauma, and Vader. Catacombs of the Grotesque kicks off really strongly with the ace opener "Lifeless Void of Darkness", but the songs that follow are not quite as good, though there are high points like "The Pestilent Pits of Disgrace" still to come. If a lot of this album blurs together, at least it is all a fist-pounding, brutal good time. Thankfully, this band is not obsessed with gore, and the song titles and lyrics all hark back to some of my favorite years of Death Metal, before Cannibal Corpse ruined everything, and every new album was filled with unholy invocations to evil gods and inhuman monsters. There are a lot of bands doing this kind of thing, but not many doing it this well.
Track Listing:
Abhorrent Dormants Awakening (Intro)
Lifeless Void of Darkness
Remains
Abominable Undead
Immense Carnage Vortex
The Pestilent Pits of Disgrace
Necrotic Invocations
What Lies Beneath
Inhuman Incarnation