Mental Funeral

Well, given the band's name, logo, and the cover of an Autopsy track at the end of this EP, you probably have a pretty good preconceived notion of what this SHOULD sound like; slow, doomy death metal with lots of dissonant chords and wretched, vomiting vocals. The reality's a little different; it sounds like Mike Juliano was TRYING for an Autopsy sound but kind of got sidetracked along the way, resulting in something probably a lot more interesting than what he originally intended. The same thing happened with Mayhem, so I can't complain.

Truth be told, only 'Refried Virgin' (and the cover itself, of course) really remind one of Autopsy. The other tracks are a little trickier; 'Grindfucker' is Autopsy-derived, but actually ends up sounding more like Anatomia's newer work, which has distanced itself somewhat from the straight Autopsy-clone sound, with a faster delivery and more modern melodic sense. 'The Sorrow Of Winter' is even more interesting; the first half does genuinely remind one of some of Autopsy's more intensely doom-ridden moments (such as off the 'Retribution For The Dead' EP), but then quite suddenly shifts into honest-to-god melodic death metal very similar to Illdisposed, with melodic tremolo riffs directly inspired by albums like 'There's Something Rotten In The State Of Denmark' before going back to the slow dissonance of the original section. As you can see, the Autopsy inspiration is clear but tempered massively by some of the more idiosyncratic pieces.

This EP doesn't offer a lot to go on as to how the band will eventually sound due to its short running time (minus the cover and intro there's less than fifteen minutes worth of original music), so I want to be steady with some of my complaints: I don't really like the pseudo-Mortician grunt vocals, but that may be less an issue of performance than production, which is kind of flat, with a very obvious, plasticky drum machine and thin guitar presence. I think if the kink in sound quality is worked out this could offer a lot more; while the songwriting is a little choppy the riffs are solid and the overall delivery is very honest and thought out. This has me intrigued if not wholly convinced.