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Fleshless > Hate Is Born > Reviews
Fleshless - Hate Is Born

A very enjoyable mix of brutal and melodic death - 73%

KingDevil666, September 18th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2008, CD, Metal Age Productions (Digipak)

It's hard to stand out as a goregrind band, since the overall image is so much of the same; a blastbeat with fat distorted, not too complex guitar lines over them and low, guttural growls. So with this being the case, it is to be said that Fleshless did a good job here with putting out something different; something recognizable. Throughout the years they succeeded in creating their own sound.

The struggle between the combination of melodics and brutal goregrind was very obvious, but seemed better balanced in this album. Songs such as "Lifetime Mayhem" and "Hate Is Born" are good examples of what this album sounds like; fast blastbeats, crazy double bass, fat heavy and here and there even jumpy guitar and bass riffs, brutal low vocals, combined with more melodic guitar work.

It sounds like a very nice combination, but even in this album it's noticeable that it isn't easy to structure the songs in a logical way and make good sounding transitions with all these influences going on at the same time. For some tracks you get the feeling that the melodic part just does not work. At least not in the way "Fleshless" worked it out. At the same time the melodic parts in other songs don't sound bad at all in combination with the heavy extreme goregrind parts.

Lyricwise I must say I expected a bit more. They could have made them a bit more extreme I'd say, better worked the feelings of the song out. If they didn't want to go for extreme brutal lyrics for some songs they should have handled it totally different to begin with. It feels like a sort of "when you do something, do it right" situation here. It sort of lacks detail in some way, and you expect death metal or grindcore lyrics to be a bit more vivid so to say.

In the end this is definitely a very enjoyable album, especially when you don't take the band too seriously. It's fun to listen to and surprisingly, the odd transitions and interesting combination of melodics and brutalness causes this album to not get boring instantly after replaying it several times. The drums are really good and the guitar and bass are nice and low and heavy. Fun to blast out loud on your stereo. A good, decent album, but Fleshless needs to work on how to make the songs and the album more fitting as a whole when they choose to continue this brutal melodic goregrind style.

melodic brutality - 60%

gk, September 18th, 2008

Formed in 1993, Fleshless is one those bands that started out as a Gore/Grind drum machine racket that I have absolutely no interest in and their first two albums were quite execrable. Then somewhere along the way the band found groove, found some melody, dropped their drum machine and got a human to join them and things started to get a bit better.

By then the band had gone from calling themselves death-grind to melodic-brutal-death. The resulting albums were all a bit strange in that there would be these ultra brutal gurgley vocals and the whole gore-grind style of guitar playing sitting next to melodic death guitar parts and that staccato riffing style. For whatever reason I’ve always been a bit curious about Fleshless and when I found out that they had a new one out this year I simply could not resist.

First song proper on Hate is Born pretty much sets the tone for the album to follow. Lifetime Mayhem starts out in a death metal frenzy with those gurgling vocals and blast beats before settling down into some chuggy mid-period Sinister riffing. From there on it’s basically a fast part and then a mid-tempo chuggy part with an extended melodic guitar section and a lead that shouldn’t make any sense on the song but somehow doesn’t sound too bad. That’s pretty much every song on the album.

While the format of each song on the album is pretty similar with a fast death riff, a staccato riffing section that sits somewhere between Fear Factory & Meshuggah and a melodic part that may or may not include a lead. The sequence of riffs and the intensity of delivery might change from song to song but that’s about it. To Watch Them Slain ups the brutality stakes while D-flesh! reminds me a lot of Fear Factory with that main chugging riff.

I have to say that Hate is Born is the most fun Fleshless album since 2001s Nice to Eat You. The riffs are jumpy and aggressive, the grooves are nice and fat and although there’s nothing particularly original about it all, it’s all done well and the band isn’t taking itself too seriously. At the same time, there’s lots of stuff here that will feel familiar and like you’ve already heard these riffs before. I suppose your tolerance and liking for the death metal genre will determine how much you like this album but overall at just over 30 minutes, Hate is Born is a short sharp blast of aggression that’s decent fun.

Originally written for http://www.kvltsite.com