Fleshless – Sensual Flesh Immitation

Forgetting the splits and the demos this is already the fourth album by the death metallers from the Czech Republic. I heard quite some songs over the years but never had the chance to listen to a whole album by these well-talented guys, that’s a problem with the huge ongoing stream with releases that bands and labels spawn upon our feeble ears: I can’t keep track on all the things! But, better late then never. So, with all high expectations I put in this album and I can’t conclude that I shouldn’t be ignoring this band for over the last few years. This is some high quality death metal indeed…

After an intro that sounds more like one of Cradle Of Filth at their “Cruelty And The Beast”-period the music bursts out in the death metal that fills the whole album, song after song. As a whole the music can be labelled as standard brutal death metal, but the way they filled their view of death metal is pretty different from the standards of the usual US-styled death metal. The sound is far more clean than for instance a band like Severe Torture does. It may sound a little less brutal at first ‘sight’, though after a close listen no one can disagree that this is heavy and brutal as shit. That rather clean sound and less blast-oriented gives the band something that comes pretty close to originality – something that is nearly impossible in the standards of brutal death metal. Maybe little less blast oriented, the emphasis is definitely put on the riffs and the double-bass. And they have some real insane axe men on the guitars and a real slayer behind the drum kit. The lack of a bass man is maybe the reason why it sounds a little heavy but I can’t say I miss it either. The thing that finishes this nice product is the artwork that seems to be drawn around the early nineties together with the infamous Autopsy albums, pretty cool, I truly wish these times could return some day…