Plainfield Cemetery

I've been listening to death metal for basically half of my 29 years - albeit with a few years off in college - and you would think that by now I'd be pretty well desensitized to its, er, rather sensationalistic subject matter. But when a band leads off their album with a track called "Beaten, Raped, Fuckin' Left to Die" - and the music backing up these often-quite-intelligible lyrics seems to reinforce a certain seriousness of intent - even I have to step back and pause for a moment. Nothing to do with any political abstractions, mind you, but simply a question of who these guys are and what they're really about. I'm sure as hell not naive enough to think they're actually serial murderers/rapists, but the apparent conviction with which they express... whatever it is - hatred, rage, a pitch-black sense of humor perhaps - is honestly frightening in a way that the seasoned death metal fan doesn't encounter too often.

The above paragraph, I suppose, can be considered a roundabout way of saying that this album, in just about the sickest, most "deranged" possible fashion, kicks your fucking ass across the room and right through the front window. I'll admit to not being too well versed in this band's rather extensive catalog (I only have 'Plainfield' and 'High on Blood' at the moment) but what I have heard must rank as some of the better brutal death out there. Far from the lame Cannibal Corpse knockoff they're sometimes dismissed as, these Swedes are more vicious and terrifying than any post-'Tomb of the Mutilated' CC material could ever dream of being. Compared to this stuff, "Fucked With A Knife" is just a tasteless, not-even-that-disturbing joke. And it's not even about the lyrics - everybody in this genre tries to out-sicken each other anyway - but the chunky buzzsaw riffs, the bone-snapping drums, and the deep, deep growls that sound like Barnes and Fisher reincarnated in one body. Picking out highlights is a somewhat useless exercise - the songs don't vary much, and they all fucking rip. But the aforementioned opener has to be one of the most genuinely unsettling moments in 21st-century death metal, its frantic hyperspeed guitar chords and equally out-of-control drumming, and the fairly audible vocals where you can pretty much hear exactly what Mr. Calle Faldt is saying, combining to create something that actually sounds downright threatening. Much the same goes for songs like "Mutilate and Dump You" and "Suffering, the Sweet Suffering" - growling along with the latter's refrain is one of my personal favorite moments.

Basically, if you like brutal death metal then you can't go wrong with this album, there's plenty here to satisfy fans of both the American (post-CC) and the European (think Disavowed or Pyaemia) styles. More so than most BDM records, this one is actually *scary*, in both concept and execution.