Thursday, November 3, 2011

Review: Exhumed - All Guts, No Glory


Band: Exhumed
Album: All Guts, No Glory
Year: 2011
Country: USA
Genre: Death Metal

Imagine if Carcass had decided to make an album while they were transitioning from the gore drenched death metal of Necroticism to the melody ridden Heartwork. A best of both worlds if you will. I imagine it would sound something like what Exhumed have brought us with AGNG. Being a Carcass clone doesn't mean you can't still make great music (i.e. Impaled), and if there is one release that proves that its this one.

Now the really deep gutturals are here like you would expect, but they are just an addition (though a good one) to the main vocal style of Matt Harvey. These are much higher but not in the same way Jeff Walker does it. Walker does more of a snarl while Harvey sounds similar to Tomas Lindberg if a little lower pitched. At first this kind of annoyed me but after too long I noticed there is something endearing about Mett's screams.

There is a pretty good dose of melody in this album but one thing it doesn't lack is savagery. You can actually draw quite a few parallels to Heartwork here. There is the melodic soloing on As Hammer To Anvil, Through Cadaver Eyes and most other songs along with the harmonies of Your Funeral, My Feast, I Rot Within, and Through Cadaver Eyes. But there is the furious no nonsense aggression from Necroticism on Death Knell, and Necrotized. Now most songs actually contain all these elements and use them to great affect no less. I need to give special to mention to the album closer So Let It Be Rotten...So Let It Be Done. This song is probably the most fun to listen to for the catchy chorus alone.

There is lots of blasting on this album and the drumming is very tight. The drummer keeps up well with the usually speedy approach used by the guitars. The bass is back there somewhere and occasionally makes it known there is even a bassist but it seems to mostly just follow the guitars note for note which is a little boring. The production is really solid for this album as well. All Guts, No Glory is pretty clean sounding, the guitars are thick the drums are pronounced and the vocals aren't buried in between them.

So with a mix of the melodic and energetic this album gives all you could ask for in a Carcass clone but so much more. An amalgam of Heartwork and Necroticism that we didn't get to experience with that band. This makes All Guts, No Glory sort of a unique clone, which I know hardly makes any sense, but in the end it really does. Exhumed deliver the goods and give us everything we need to thrash away.

Score: 8.5/10
Standout Tracks: So Let it Be Rotten...So Let It Be Done, Your Funeral, My Feast, Through Cadaver Eyes

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