FACELESS BURIAL
Speciation (Cassette)

For the past five years, Australia’s Faceless Burial have been flying the flag of classicist ’90s death metal, first across a demo in 2015 and then the subsequent (and acclaimed) Grotesque Miscreation debut album in 2017, along with the follow-up Multiversal Abattoir 12-inch a year later. Those latter two recordings, in particular, portrayed the potency of this power-trio, displaying an unremittingly dark and dexterous sound which draws in a variety of death metal traditions. Going from strength to strength, the band play their strongest hand yet with the full-length Speciation. Altogether sharper and more finessed than all previous, this release spreads unimaginable death metal might with malignant ease. This band exudes a charm that’s all their own, which largely comes down to the songwriting itself. Preceding records maintained a murky ’n’ malodorous aspect, predominantly in the sound; here it’s been parlayed into tense ’n’ treacherous textures. Otherwise, no great changes have been made, nor should there be: forever twisting and never stagnating, each of these six songs reveals new corridors through which to spelunk, and efficiently so across the album’s deceptively epic 36-minute runtime.