Rating: 7.6

Country: Australia

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Obsidian Records

Track list:
1. Hunting Humans
2. Onslaughter
3. Raging Violence
4. Nameless Enemy
5. The Dead
6. Drown in Sin
7. They Eat Their Wounded
8. A Killing Kind
9. The Doomsayer

Band Website: The Dead

The Dead - The Dead

Mike Yee - Vokills
Scott Edgar - Guitars
Adam Keleher - Bass
Chris Morse - Drums

An ugly fucking abomination of a band that has only recently risen up to the surface of the underground Australian cesspool, The Dead boast of having members of some of the oldest death metal bands in their country such as Obfuscate Mass and Misery [review]. With already a couple of formidable demos and a vinyl release to their credit, The Dead have ceremoniously stepped out of the underground with a self titled debut, their maimed and severely deformed body shivering with raw unbridled excitement and dripping toxic sludge.

The Dead is a veritable hodgepodge of grimy death metal elements that when played exudes a sense of disorienting omnidirectional chaos that only the Australian bands seem to be capable of causing. It is like listening to a death metal version of Nuclear Death. Almost arbitrary, their music actually has no real comparable features; it's like a grotesque skin mask seamlessly created by The Dead which when worn gives them a unique horrifying identity. Aided by the competently messy production, the band plays death metal music that's irrational, unrecognisable, disjointed, and at times even sludgy, but all that is sufficiently coalesced to make it less baffling for you. And within all that the band has managed to infuse noddable parts and hooks that would make your limbs move in ways possible only after the complete dislocation from their joints. After being subjected to the vulgar punishment of the album's earlier songs, “Nameless Enemy”, a comparatively relaxed and unhinged track, does just that – make your broken limbs sway loosely to-and-fro. The Dead also tend to mix in sludgy parts mostly to emphasize the grooviness of the music like Pungent Stench or to lend a doomy Black Sabbath-esque vibe to the proceedings as done in the last ambitious song, “The Doomsayer”. Vocals are highly muffled and are delivered in a whimsical manner, with the vocalist often opting for anguished snarls that sound similar to John Tardy's. Drums suitably rumble all through, aiming to knock you off your comfortable pedestal. The six-string bass playing by Adam sounds most remarkable, the poings and twangs of its constantly mutilated strings lashing out at you from the speakers as though snapping off from the guitar in timely fashion.

No doubt, there exists a certain and obvious beauty to this repulsive ugliness. And for that there is no logical explanation. Let's just say, even a monkey who paints holding the brush between his toes can sometimes create a piece of modern art worthy of equal praise as long as the anally retentive critics and the audience don't come to know about him or his technical method, because then they are likely to get outraged, embarrassed, and dismiss it outright. As a listener of true underground metal, all you need to know is that the final product clicks somehow and that its appalling crudeness and perverse death metal aesthetic only enhances the feel which the band intends to create. So avoid getting yourself embroiled with insignificant aspects, in this case anyway, such as the band's tightness, technicality and slickness of production, and instead allow The Dead's inherent morbidity and twisted application to violate your senses.

July 10th, 2008