Devourment - Conceived In Sewage - Album Review

Year: 2013

Is change a good thing in the world of metal? What happens when an established band decides to experiment and change their sound a little bit? It can go two ways. It can result in abominations like 'St.Anger' and 'Illud Divinum Insanus'. Or it can result is successful albums like 'Cowboys From Hell' or the recent 'The Underground Resistance'. What effect do little changes have on this particular record?

Devourment is a Slamming Brutal Death Metal band that hails from Dallas, Texas, USA. Their fifth studio album, titled 'Conceived In Sewage' was released on 19th February, 2013, through Relapse Records. Devourment bring a lot of little changes to the table with this record. 

The first noticeable change is regarding the vocals. The vocalist showcases many variations in his style and there is a massive improvement in terms of his pronunciation of the lyrics. For the first time in a Devourment  record, it is discernible that the vocalist is trying to say something and is not just growling randomly.

The other change is with the production aspect. Gone are the days of overly muddy productions. The guitar sounds sharp and retains a sense of brutality. The drumming sound well and the drummer adds quite a number of technical riffs in places. All these little changes work well.

Right from the first note of 'Legalize Homicide', the band wastes no time at all and they pound the listener with a wall of brutal sound created by a combination of guitar and bass. The variations in the dynamics of the songs keep things from getting overly monotonous. 

The riffs are memorable and in some songs like 'Fifty Ton War Machine' and 'Today We Die, Tomorrow We Kill',  the verses are actually catchy. The slam quotient is abundantly present in this record and it is absolutely pulverizing.

The track 'Fucked With Rats' has guest vocals by Travis Ryan of Cattle Decapitation and this makes the mentioning of how brutal this track is, redundant. 

One little flaw remains though. The bass is barely audible in the mix and it could have been made to sound a lot louder. Other than this, there are no other flaws.

This albums is a high energy, aggressive and insanely fun record. There are a number of points in the record where the infectious groove makes one's body tremble with excitement. Personally, the effect that this record has on me was that it makes me want to get up and mosh aimlessly with all the energy in my body. It is a damn fun record with plenty of memorable tracks.

Rating: 92%