Iniquitous

Rottrevore was a band from the first wave of American death metal who is best known for their 1993 debut and only album, Iniquitous. This one album band had released two EP's previously in 1991 and 92 respectively. The only studio release this band ever had came in the last year of death metal's commercial reign, 1993. The band, while being an east coast band, has a sound that's instantly recognizable, and makes this album a lovable B-tier classic. In this review I'll be dissecting and talking about the band Rottrevore's only full-length album, Iniquitous. Let's begin, shall we?

The album wastes no time, and gets you right into the groovy, heavy, and devastating riffs. These crushing riffs drive the band the whole way through, and there are some truly awesome ones peppered throughout. One thing this album has that I've never heard previously from an album of it's genre and time is the bass breaks. This is one of my favorite parts of the record, where only the bass and drums are audible. The bass has a nasty and cavernous tone, for lack of a better word, the bass is slimy. The album delivers mid-tempo crushers as well as typical death metal speedsters. Some songs feature solos, but they aren't a dominant force in the music. Most of them are whammy bar dives and such. The band plays a simple, primitive, yet effective brand of death metal. These guys would fit in with the New York scene, Tampa scene, as well as the Dutch scene seamlessly. The music draws inspiration from many bands from those places, and takes those influences to make a fun ODSM album. Now let's talk about the production, which really helps this albums brutality shine through.

When one wants a thick and crushing riff, one needn't look any further than this album. The production helps make this album have more memorable riffs than can be counted. The tone of the guitars is by far my favorite quality of this album. The bass shines through as well, as it possesses a slimy, evil, and thick sound. The drums are produced decent enough, sometimes they can be difficult to hear, and I can barely hear the double bass kick drums through all the guitar's distorted fuzz. However, it doesn't end up mattering, as the snares, toms, and cymbals push forward a brutal and groovy sound. All in all, a good production for a pretty good album.

To conclude my thoughts on this album, I'll give it a steady 84. The album, while being original and competent, doesn't always stick with you the first time you hear it. For some it may take a few listens to really get it and have favorite tracks, but when you do (if you do) it is always a fun album to revisit. This a perfect album for those who want their death metal to be groovy, simple, catchy, but not lazy. This is definitely not an album to overlook. As a one album release band, I'd say that the band did great and probably had some more awesome material in the works, but for better or for worse, all we got was this record. Good debut, listen to it sooner than later!

-Nolan

Rottrevore's debut album was recorded and released a couple of years after the American death metal peak. It is tempting to think of bands like Rottrevore as also-rans, but I'm not sure about that. The death metal peak only applied to Florida (and maybe New York). There were many other cities and mini-scenes in the US, which all developed at their own pace. My theory, correct or not, is that Rottrevore were part of an 'inland' American death metal scene which differed from the Florida sound. There were plenty of bands making death metal away from the coast (Viogression, Morta Skuld, Baphomet, etc). Rottrevore was one of the best of them.

Like most old school death metal bands, Rottrevore built a reputation in the years preceding their debut album. The band had already released a demo and two seven-inches. Almost every song from those three recordings appears on "Iniquitous" (the only song missing was "Intimidation", which they had already recorded twice). The album only contains two new songs; "Jesters of Recession" and "Incompetent Secondary", which sound as good as anything else here. The main achievement of "Iniquitous" is how it ties all the songs together into a consistent album. The demo and the two seven-inches felt different to one another, all having different production aesthetics and style. "Iniquitous" feels unified and the quality is high.

The production is as beefy as you could hope for. It sounds lower and more brutal than most death metal bands of the time. The guitars have a lot of 'crunch'. The production reminds me of Demigod's "Slumber of Sullen Eyes" which appeared on the same label (Drowned). The vocals are chasmic and occasionally use vocal effects (like on "Disembodied"). The new drummer is not as exciting as the guy who played on the band’s first seven-inch ("Copulation of the Virtuous and Vicious"), but he is solid enough. Rottrevore don't blast much, they prefer to maintain a steady mid-pace which reminds me of early Gorefest and some of the Finnish bands. I can also spot some hardcore influences in the simplicity and in the socially conscious lyrics.

This is ultra-heavy, roughneck death metal with no interest in anything progressive, technical or clever. The album sustains my interest for the duration despite the lack of variety. The best bits are when Rottrevore slows down and introduces a darker mood. The band sound great when they stop chugging and introduce a brief guitar melody, like a simpler version of Bolt Thrower. "Conspiracized" and "Dismal Fate" are the two songs which make best use of this. The former is probably the highlight of the album. It cuts into a slow, Finnish sounding death metal section at the 0:37 mark, which then repeats and builds back into the chugging. They could have used these sombre elements more often.

"Iniquitous" is one of the better American death metal albums of 1993. I would recommend it to serious death metal fans who have heard the obvious classics and want something simple and effective. This isn't the best Rottrevore material, that honour goes to "Copulation of the Virtuous and Vicious" which has better chemistry and energy. Nonetheless, "Iniquitous" is the place where you can hear (almost) every Rottrevore song in one place with a clear, punishing, uncompromising sound.

Though existing in some form going back to the mid-1980s, it's rightly stipulated that death metal's apex point in history rested somewhere in the first half of the decade that would follow. What began as a handful of thrash and speed metal acts in several different countries playing too fast and too raw to stay confined within the paradigm of their day had reached a tipping point at the turn of the 1990s following the explosion of bands that would pour out of Florida, Sweden and Germany. Be this as it may, there was something particularly astounding about the way the New York scene staked their claim to the halls of brutality, to the point of literally demolishing the proverbial halls themselves into a pile of dust. One would be remiss to say that Suffocation's seminal 1991 expose of unfettered heaviness Effigy Of The Forgotten wasn't an absolute game-changer, but already in the years that would follow outfits such as Morpheus Descends, Baphomet and Incantation would up the ante even further, all but obliterating what many considered the original definition of death metal that has been established in the late 80s.

It is into this context that the underground prognosticator of pure brutality, known to the few who delve into such depths as Rottrevore, presented what is arguably the climax point of the New York death metal scenes quest for the most brutal sound with their 1993 LP Iniquitous. Though situated in western Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh in a town that barely anyone lives in, they sport a blunt sound of dissonant rage that sounds like they came up in the same Buffalo, New York scene that birthed the original necro-mongering beasts Cannibal Corpse. And while they opted for a more politically charged lyrical approach than their similarly styled competition of the day, the sound that they achieved on this colossal display of earth-shaking mayhem is in a class all by itself. It's sort of an interesting coincidence considering the most of the team responsible for achieving this sound were not terribly prolific in death metal circles, though guitarist Mark Mastro (who also did the album art and participated in the mixing process) did extensive logo work for Immolation during their formative period.

A key feature of what makes this album the monstrous staple of death metal intensity is the utterly gargantuan wall of sound that is established. It spends a fair bit of time in mid-paced, grooving territory that could almost be likened to a precursor to the slam craze that would ensue near the turn of the millennium, though it tends to manifest in more of a grinding fashion that a stomping one. The heavily distorted bass lines provided by Chris Free gives things both a dense and also bottom-heavy character that's somewhat similar to Onward To Golgotha's dank aesthetic, though when mixed in with a more punchy guitar and drum sound that's closer to the earlier Suffocation sound, has a slightly greater degree of impact working off the dense atmosphere. Combined with an inhumanly deep and forbidding vocal performance out of Chris Weber that would give Craig Pillard a run for his money, about the only thing that really sets this album apart from a typical New York offering is the wildly shred-happy guitar soloing, which has a bit more of a Hoffman brothers/Deicide character to it that introduces a surprising yet also fitting earlier death metal element into the pot.

For the most part, this album flows like a consistent storm of raging waters that washes over everything in its path, and if there is any flaw in its otherwise perfect presentation, it is that the songs sort of run together and highlight/climactic points are a bit few and far between. Chalk it up to a band that is so good at what they do that they can't help but seemingly write songs that wreck one's ears in the exact same way, but it gets a little difficult to tell where a stampeding behemoth like "Jesters Of Recession" ends and blasting typhoons of destruction like "Unanimous Approval" begin were it not for a few unique introductory moments or brief bits of silence. Taken on their own, the quick-paced beater with a groovier feel "Conspiracised" and the somewhat doom-infused turned crusher "Dismal Fate" stand out the most for having a bit more of an accessible feel akin to Entombed and Autopsy buried beneath the fuzz. This isn't so much to say that this album is a slouch by any means, but it doesn't quite match the continually distinctive character of the likes of Effigy Of The Forgotten or Ritual Of Infinity.

In similar fashion to their New York-based contemporaries Morpheus Descends and Baphomet, this outfit's tenure in the roaring early 90s was a short-lived one, too short-lived to really establish themselves in a manner worthy of what they achieved here. Nevertheless, this album does have all the makings of a seminal classic of the unsung category, it doesn't come off quite as focused and as well-honed as many of the other classics that came out of the American northwest at around the same time. It's a given that anyone who craves that uniquely dense and morbid mode of death metal that marked the early years of Incantation will find a worthy competitor here, but it has a slight bit more of that earlier death metal charm that was exhibited on albums like Severed Survival and Eaten Back To Life in tow just beneath the murky surface. It's best described as the ultimate homage album that could have been offered by a group of fans of an established scene, and is the sort of album that any self-respecting death metal consumer should sample a few times, though perhaps not something that would dominate everyone's Top 10 albums of the early 90s list.

Rottrevore were a short-lived Pennsylvanian outfit that managed a few EPs and one full length in their short career: 1993’s ‘Iniquitous’. Musically, this release sits beside much death metal of the east coast at the time, along the lines of Suffocation, Morpheous Descends and Incantation. In many ways ‘Iniquitous’ bridges the gap between Suffocation’s percussive leanings and the more atmospheric, doom-laden approach taken by Incantation.

The production choices acknowledge where Rottrevore’s strengths are, opting to throw all the weight behind the rhythm section. The bass drum here is lent a clicky quality which allows them to cut through the dirge of the guitars. Indeed, the bass guitar is the real star of the show here, and for the many brief passages where we are treated to just drums and bass it almost sounds like industrial music. Vocals are guttural and incomprehensible, for twas the style at the time.

Guitars are a no thrills blend of atonal thrash riffs re-interpreted in that chopped up and (at first glance) random riff salad structure common to death metal at the time. So dirty and primitive is ‘Iniquitous’ at times that it has more in common with grindcore than it does their more elegant death metal contemporaries. The solos are frantic and often come across as random non-structures of wailing noise, until some rudimentary minor key progressions come into play, adding depth and musical progression beyond the first impressions this music engenders.

Although this is not technical on the level of Suffocation, the tempo changes and colliding rhythms are the key to this music. The guitars are so distorted that subtlety is redundant. One relies on the drums to cut through the mush and alert the listener to transitions in tempo, riff, and intensity. It’s a chaotic and fun exploration of what is essentially a balancing act between creating a wall of noise, and how to articulate beat variation within this framework.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

This is an album I used to be absolutely convinced I was totally into it for a long time because I just loved listening to it again and again getting all fired up to hear the song "Conspiracised" with that wicked guitar lead and the whole song building up to it. I probably heard the album upwards of a hundred times by now over the years because I always loved it when it gets to that song, and I still love "Conspiracised" to death, probably one of my all time favourite death metal songs. It's just weird that after all the years, all the many, many listens, I still can't really recall anything much from any other song and it's odd that it took me so long to realise, but it turns out I'm not really a big fan of the album at all, I'm just a huge fan of its eighth song, and the rest of the album just served as a build-up to it without doing much by itself.

That's not to say the rest of the album is bad by any means. It's solid, competently played, cool style, properly rotten atmosphere, all super-solid and maybe somewhere slightly above average, just nothing that grabs me by the throat and takes me on a wild and brutal death metal ride. More like death metal background music I can listen to while doing my household chores, pleasant to hear without distracting me with too much of that great riff stuff that makes focusing on chores more difficult than it should be. It's decent music but really nothing you couldn't live without.

But I was so convinced I truly loved the album despite what little almost its entire runtime does for me, and it's just for that one song. And its really a testament to what a beast of a song it is that it gets you all excited to hear an album that doesn't actually excite you at all just for hearing it, for such a long time, for so many listens. It's basically if you built a Frankenstein monster of all the coolest parts of all the coolest Northeastern United States old school death metal bands of the time, then built another Frankenstein monster of all the coolest Carcass riffs of their first two albums and then made your two Frankenstein monsters have a kid, and that's "Conspiracised". It's like a death metal fan's wet dream of a song, at least to me, and such a riff orgasm from start to finish, one of the absolute highlights of the then-young genre, and remaining just that to this day. Few songs ever encapsuled this style with such perfect mastery, and I doubt in the aeons till the inevitable end of human civilisation any ever will.

In a way it's sad, the day that realisation hit me, that an album that I was so convinced that I was so into actually turned out to be something I mostly just play to pass the time till it reaches its one highlight. Nothing sad of course about a band writing that perfect a song, but I wish I could take away more of that kind of quality from the rest of the album. But really, no matter how many times I listen to it for no matter how many years, I just don't get anything beyond "solid" and "decent" from the rest of the album. Still good to have in one's collection just for "Conspiracised", but as an album, it's not really something that justifies its full length run time.

Heyo, more heavy as fuck downtuned, disgusting, filth, murky, yada yada yada death metal from the early days. Now, this definitely belongs to that subsect of death metal that is more grimy, unpolished, raw, etc., yet Its really kind of a strange album when you break it down because it doesn't sound like what you think a real murky type death metal album would sound like. The production on this beast is almost Swedish sounding with how distorted everything is, but it contains neither the d-beats, or the general riffing style. And speaking of riffing style, the riffs are really aggressive, but they seem to lack the morbidity of most death metal of this type. It feels almost like a more elaborate grind record because it's mostly focused on aggression than pure death, of course you get songs like Dismal fate that have real morbid sounding riffs, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. The lyrics also take a more political stance, which is obviously a hallmark of grindcore, so its a hard record to peg down. The vocals are also ridiculously guttural, which would seem to take cues from death metal.

The songwriting on this album is very strange, it jumps around in a very odd way, the songs have lots of twists and turns that pop up out of nowhere, but the songs are not very technical. Its just really odd music, and actually fairly unique, and its also really good, its almost fun to listen to the songs abruptly stop whatever they are doing and just jump to a completely unrelated section, but still be able to do it with class. Congrats to Rottrevore for making a fairly distinct record. This album is weird, not in the "we cram multiple genres in our songs" way, but because its undeniably filthy death metal, but without the vibe that usually comes along with that. Its not really atmospheric, and its not really morbid. I'm coining the term elaborate grindcore for this because it is well written grindcore in a filthy death metal skin. It still feels weird calling this grindcore, but it kind of makes sense. It really is a perfect interlocking of grindcore and death metal, its basically a grindcore album written like a death metal album. May the grinders and deathers rejoice...

I really have no idea what these guys' intentions were when the made this record, did they approach this with a 100% death metal mindset?, or were they huge fans of grindcore, and that influence happened to rub off, or were they trying to expand what could be done in the grindcore camp? Its all sort of puzzling, and that's not a word that usually comes to mind when approaching this type of music, what you see is what you get with most of this stuff, but this is different. In fact, I didn't really even notice the grindcore elements that much until I sat down to think about this record so I could write a review, And I haven't really seen anyone mention grindcore when talking about this album, so maybe I must be weird?!?!?! I must say you have puzzled me Rottrevore.


Grindcore count: 10
Death metal count: 8

I still have no idea what to do with that information.

Until recently, I ignored the existence of this band. I came up Rottrevore in a thread about obscure/forgotten old school death metal acts. Rottrevore is quite a name and it caught my attention. These guys have had a demo and 2 EPs (before recording this) which I didn't have the chance to listen to yet. So I am not familiar with their sound before this one.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised upon hearing this album. It's old school death metal alright, and it's damn good! A strange thing; I don't like Swedish and Finnish death metal (with one or two exceptions maybe) but I really like the "Scandinavian touch" in this album. The music here is heavy as hell with GREAT riffs and awesome GROWLING. The drumming is quite typical for death metal and gives a much heavier tone in the songs. Fuzzy bass (the 1st song starts with galloping drums and fuzzy bass) shredding it's way to your mind. Have I mentioned how much I like the growling? Oh yes, I have! It's really deep and kinda scary. As for the guitar work there are so many great riffs on this album! I mean, riffs that make you wanna bang your head off! Simple, heavy riffs without a lot of technical stuff in them. Just listen to Spawn of Ignorance, Unanimous Approval, Dismal Fate, Disembodied, Conspiracised, Action for Loss... That's the half album! For each song there is at least one great riff and that's no exaggerating.

Most death metal bands are into death, gore, sickness, darkness, anti-religion and stuff like that concerning the lyrics. Rottrevore is a brilliant exception because they write lyrics about politics and here they have done a nice job. About production; I never know what I should write here. I am a huge fan of vintage sound, I don't like digital sound, "crystal clear guitars" etc. So I do like the production here. It's just fine. All the instruments are audible (the bass kicks ass) and you get the full experience of heavy, extreme music listening to the album. Just listen to it; it couldn't get any better.

If the above didn't convince you to listen to this hidden old school death metal gem, I can only say to you: Close the review and go listen to it cause you are wasting your time reading this! Yeah that would sum up my thoughts. If you are into death metal you MUST listen to this! I also think it's a must have for serious death metal collectors. If you happen to come across it please buy it; it is worth the money.

Rock On!
-Tzitzis-

This misty and cold morning would usually make me listen to something black metal, but for a change today I picked up something way more brutal and destructive, hoping it will cheer me up and fill me with some lethal energy for the day. And fuck, it did so much! At the same time I thought “wow, this album is so fantastic and I haven’t written anything about this band so far, also it is quite rare to read anything about them at all, so I’ll do this review!”. And so, I’m writing this text and the band I’m talking about is called Rottrevore. To many of you this moniker will bring great memories of one of the most legendary US death metal bands, one which have to be mentioned along with the likes of Incantation, Goreaphobia, Suffocation and Baphomet as one of the best and most brutal bands from the early 90’s. They will catch your attention and let you recognize them instantly, once you see their awesome logo and obviously also when you hear the killer music. This truly is a fuckin legend. Formed back in 1989 Rottrevore did just one demo and a couple of EPs, before recording and releasing the only album “Iniquitous” through Drowned Productions. I actually for many years only owned “Copulation of the Virtuous and Vicious” EP, having “Iniquitous” on tape, which someone recorded for me in rather bad quality. As it often happens nowadays the original pressing of the CD costs a lot of money and is just difficult to get, so I was very, very happy once I have found out that Xtreem Music will release “Iniquitous” on CD as well as on the LP! I do realize that many labels re-release the old albums or demos nowadays and not all of them really should be instantly called cult and some may not even be worth being re-pressed, but definitely this Rottrevore classic LP is one of those materials, which just had to be re-released. And I am so happy to have this stuff on vinyl now… Released on wonderful green splatter record, which looks like some sort of nuclear fireworks it is awesome! And the original artwork looks very impressive in the huge 12”LP format. I am happy also that Xtreem took everything seriously and so you’ll find there also an insert with the lyrics and some old band photos, there’s even the old thanks list, so this vinyl has been released in very appropriate way.

And music wise… well, this is fantastic brutal death metal. I already mentioned some other US bands, like Incantation and Baphomet and definitely Rottrevore is in the same league and quality wise they’re equally good. Add to this list a bit of Napalm Death, as well as the masters from Finland like Abhorrence, Demilich and Purtenance and you know what this is all about! Once “Jesters of Recession” begins and you hear those massive, brutal heavy riffage and deep growls of Chris Weber and Mark Mastro you feel like something exceptional is about to be played and those sounds truly can make your ears bleed! And when you start to bang your head it will turn out that you cannot, cause your body has already been dismembered and all life fluids are slowly dropping away with blood! “Iniquitous” is a phenomenal album. I love the production of it, which I think is quite close to the old Baphomet recordings, with quite similar guitar tone (I really love this one!), but maybe with the difference that Rottrevore seems to be even heavier, especially with those low, deep and completely unreadable growls. The music is not really too fast, it rather concentrates on mid paced or sometimes slow tempos, but some grinding ferocities can be spotted here and there. Here and there you may also get surprised by a very cool guitar solo or something like that – “Dismal Fate”, which definitely is one of the best tracks, very close to Napalm Death and early Bolt Thrower in many ways, serves here as a great example for that, as definitely Rottrevore didn’t aim just for the brutality, for the sake of being brutal, but managed to combine it with a very good songwriting, some more catchy riffs and sick, dark, creepy atmosphere. My favourite tracks are “Dismal Fate”, “Spawn of Ignorance” and “Jesters of Recession”, to mention these three only, but if I am to be honest – which I always am – I can consider the whole album as a complete crusher, with no fillers, but just a strong and gut ripping material.

And I guess there’s only one thing, which I don’t like so much about “Iniquitous” – the lyrics on this album. Rottrevore has been writing about social and political issues, which have never been my favourite kind of the lyrics in death metal. You know, you see the band’s logo and that awesome monstrous artwork and you can expect some sort of horror / gore album – and it would be cool, but instead you read about corruption, fucked up political system and how it enslaves people… OK, I agree these are important matters, but in death metal I rather prefer to read different sort of the lyrics. Sorry, if you don’t agree – and I know that there were many bands, which wrote the social / political lyrics, Napalm Death and Death for instance – but this is how I feel about it.

This re-issue of “Iniquitous” contains three bonus tracks and all are live recordings from 1992. I usually am quite sceptic about such additions and not always appreciate them, as sometimes the sound quality sucks balls. In this case it is not so bad and I can live with the fact of having these live recordings on my vinyl… One of those tracks – “Clogged Sewer Pipe” – is pretty useless, to be honest, as it is just short grinding tune, but two others – “Ceased by Failure” and “Disembodied” – are fine. All in all, with or without those live tracks, “Iniquitous” is damn awesome album and I can only strongly recommend you getting it and adding it to the collection of your old school cult death metal releases; it must be there just as much as “The Dead Shall Inherit” or “Effigy of the Forgotten”.
Standout tracks: “Dismal Fate”, “Spawn of Ignorance”, “Actions for Loss”, “Jesters of Recession”
Final rate: 90/100

It’s not often you can judge a whole album by the opening 10 seconds, but you can with Rottrevore’s debut, and only, full-length album Iniquitous. With the bass guitar belching out low-as-fuck tunes from the get-go, you just know this is going to be one hell of an album.

The term “heavy” is basically synonymous with metal, seeing as it’s “heavy metal,” but I can tell you right now: You have not heard death metal as heavy as this. Fact. Iniquitous sounds like it’s under extra gravity, crushing the instruments to further extremities than they were meant to go. The bass guitar is obviously the best example. It may just be the most downtuned bass guitar I’ve heard. Like the very opening of “Jesters Of Recession,” or at about 16 seconds of “Conspiracized,” you can almost physically feel how heavy it is. The guitars are just as heavy themselves, with a very small amount of fuzz to compliment them. The riffs are very old-school (expected, seeing as this album was released in 1993), so fans of that sort of death metal will be in Heaven here. The riffs remind me of Suffocation, to an extent, so if you can picture a filthier version of, say, Effigy Of The Forgotten, you’re heading in the right direction.

None of the music here is very fast, which definitely will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that is what makes Iniquitous what it is. I picture it to not be as fast, but a lot more calculated it its delivery. Every riff, every drum beat, and every Hell-spawned growl seems very articulated and precise. We are treated to a fast drumming section at 1:40 in “Disembodied,” but these segments aren’t frequent. The drumming is superb, however, and a faster style would not have worked as well, to be honest.

I have to mention the vocals, as they are, in a word, vicious. The songs are laced with these deadly growls that sound like the evil twin of George Fisher. The lyrics are not your usual death and gore, either, which shows that Rottrevore were not influenced by the likes of Cannibal Corpse or Death at that time. You can’t understand what he’s saying, anyway, but it’s still a nice observation.

Overall, Iniquitous is a classic, very underground piece of death metal that everyone should hear. Unfortunately, the first press of this album is now only available to those with a lot of money (I paid $100 for mine, which is apparently a bargain), but there have been rumours that it’s going to be re-released soon. If it is, I suggest that you go out and buy this album, because you will almost certainly not be disappointed. Brutal, crushing, heavy-as-all fuck death metal not for the faint of heart.

The only full length the band ever released. This recording has every single song from the demos, so if you are interested but are not sure of this band, it is worth it to just get this. It is highly convenient when bands do this, release a full length before they split up, and although we are unfortunate that they are no longer with us, we are fortunate that they ended with the bang they did.
Everything said about the demos can be said for this album, the album is like a long demo, the recording is just slightly better than on their demos, and the songs are just the same. Seeing as the band was not around for long enough to go into any sort of musical experimenting or evolution, we can see a distinct time in the musicians’ lives, and so all their stuff sounds similar. Really they only have as many songs as is on the full length, which happens to be 11. Seeing as my opinion of the demos is that they are hard to get through, you can imagine that the full length can hardly be listened to in its entirety. Although 38 minute sin length may not seem that long, but this music is so dense and thick it seems like you are stuck in time for those few precious minutes. That is part of the appeal of this music, and I would say is also the appeal of all music that has virtually no hooks and very little riffs that are catchy. That they weigh down on you like a ton of bricks, making the music even more heavy, and also making it hard to copy and form into a trend. This album has the effect of an anchor being put around your neck, dragging you into the dark obscure waters of Rottrevore’s brain. I can link their song writing to a mid-tempo Hate Eternal, so fans of the latter if they are tired of the blasting should be able to have the focus necessary for this music. Seriously, fans of ultra technical and complex shit should listen to this, for this is slower and less extreme, but has a similar effect. Over al a great accomplishment, and gets extra points for gathering all of Rottrevore’s work into one handy-dandy slipcase CD.

Anyone who has ever used the term 'crushing' to describe a death metal band or album hasn't got a fucking clue until they've heard "Iniquitous" from Rottrevore. This record sits up there with "Onward to Golgotha" and "Effigy of the Forgotten" as one of the heaviest offerings to ever come out of the classic American death metal scene. Unfortunately, because it was released on a relatively small Spanish label and has been long out of print, it is very often overlooked and forgotten. Interestingly enough, these guys were actually once signed to Relapse Records but for whatever reason switched to a different label for the release of their second EP before finally settling on Drowned Productions.

Rottrevore deliver a form of ridiculously heavy, down-tuned death metal that will pulverize your spine. The songs are mostly played at mid tempo with a strong emphasis on heavy riffing rather than aggression and speed. There are times when the tempo really picks up, but these instances are few and far between and are executed tastefully on this album.

The production is unbelievable and can best be described as 'pants-shitting'. The only album I've heard whose sound even comes close to this in sheer heaviness is "Four Depressive Seasons" by Illdisposed. From the moment you hit 'Play', you're instantly submerged by a bubbling sea of thick guitars, bone-snapping drums and a bass tone that's lower than the lifeless chasms of hell. Listen to the song 'Conspiracized' around the 0:15 second mark to experience a brief bass solo that's more akin to a tank flattening a graveyard. The vocals are delivered both by Mark Mastro and Chris Weber. Together they are able to form some of the most inhumanly low, naturally-produced growls that make Chris Barnes sound like a weeping schoolgirl.

If you're looking for groove, mosh, blastbeats and headspins then go listen to Internal Bleeding or Skinless. But if you want pure, brutal death metal untouched by commercial trends then do yourself a favor and find this CD.