Autopsy – The Headless Ritual

The return as a recording artist of Autopsy in recent years, was – for me, at least – something to really look forward to. All of this led to the first full length release in 16 years, with ‘Macabre Eternal’ in 2011.

A most impressive album, to say the least. It catapulted Autopsy straight back to the centre of attention, a position well earned by morbid master Chris Reifert and his fellow acolytes of gore. Despite being an adept of Autopsy’s comeback album, somewhere in the back of my head, a lurking fear started growing. What if this is it… will they be able to hold on to the firm stairway back up to the pantheon of Death Metal.

Almost immediately after playing ‘The Headless Ritual’ for the first time, I was reassured. And after playing it more and more, for me personally, this is even better than ‘Macabre Eternal’. Going on a slightly more adventurous tour, Autopsy blends all of the element that make this such a great band, into a fresh new album.

First of all, I’m glad Autopsy again chose not to overproduce the album. I’m getting sick of those slick, faceless productions I hear everyhwere nowadays. Autopsy shamelessly opts for thinner guitars, a dark sound and untriggered drums. Once again, this piece of rotten meat called ‘The Headless Ritual’ offers something of every album that Autopsy has released since the birth of Death Metal.

The raw, unpolished blistering madness of ‘Severed Survival’, the morbid, asphyxiating melodies of ‘Mental Funeral’, the experiments of gore of ‘Acts of the Unspeakable’ and the shift to the more hardcore ridden scabby crust sound of ‘Shitfun’.

What amazes me the most is that, despite inserting all those familiar elements, this album never, not even once, sounds outdated. Yes, it reminds me of those days of lore. No, it does not have prog riffs, breakdowns, bla bla bla. I’m glad. Because precisely that would be the crap I do NOT want to hear from Autopsy.

You can hear that the years of recording and touring has had obvious positive effect on the individual band members. Tighter, better guitar leads, all held together by the very recognizable drum sound of Mr. Reifert himself. Just as recognizable are his vocals, that range anywhere between a gurgling, guttural roar to the horrified shrieks of a maggot infested re-animated corpse. From the first second, this monster of an album grabs me by the neck, and everytime I risk losing attention, it tightens it grip and pulls me straight back to business.

The album holds its high level, just listen to the amazing opener ‘Slaughter at Beast House’, ‘Mangled Far Below’ or the blistering, frenetic ‘When Hammer Meets Bone’. I truly hope to see them live again somewhere in the near future, having become really curious how these tracks will hold their ground live, inbedded between all those other classicks.

‘The Headless Ritual’ seems to have conquered its position in my yearlist for 2013.