Monstrosity (review by MMB)

Monstrosity

The Passage of Existence

Metal Blade Records

7 September 2018

2018 finds Monstrosity in a good place, musically speaking. The name Monstrosity carries importance for cult death metal fanatics due to the Florida, U.S. act’s participation in the early 1990s death metal wave, starting with its 1990 demo and its tight, blasting 1992 debut album. This new album is a manifestation of the veteran band’s experience in songwriting and general knowledge of having been around for a long time, working on furthering the trajectory that began all those years ago. This new album features effective songwriting that works its way to the listener on the basis of an initial listen to let everyone know that it’s going to be memorable. The songs tend to march forward, galloping towards the chorus, toward the guitar solo, and then it’s on to the next one. It’s feel-good death metal; songs that virtually anyone into extreme metal can understand.

The vocals are fairly low and gruff, and are done well and mix well with the music. There is no annoying yelling, no trying-to-be-funny animal or caricature sounds, no weak attempts at singing; it is straightforward death vocals.

The sound of Monstrosity is more focused on memorable songs and having riffs that you can remember, and this objective is then set in a context of death metal heaviness: the guitar is mostly uptempo, although it is not all-out blazing all the time, with the drums also following this general idea, and the blasting is used in some places, but it is not the total blast attack of their days of the savage youthful brutality. Don’t get it confused, though: this is mosh-friendly, headbanging extreme metal through and through; a rather appealing album, and even more friendly to the ears than metalheads imagine when they think of the name Monstrosity.

monstrosityofficial.bandcamp.com