Die
Rise Of The Rotten
Unique Leader

Die churn the sort of confrontational tech-head death metal that, when poorly executed, winds up offering more in the way of pomp than circumstance, with independently talented musicians flashing their wares like strippers at a trench-coat convention, completely neglecting the collective necessity of The Song in the process. Thankfully the relatively new Dutch five-piece know a thing or two about cooperative sonic sickness and while it’s unlikely their nine-track Unique Leader debut Rise Of The Rotten will win any awardsfor originality, it’ll likely earn some “fuck yeahs” for its maniacal precision and dutifully violent nature.

The band features past and former members of blackened DM miscreants Panzerchrist(rhythms guitarist Rasmus Henriksen and drummer Bent Bisballe Nyeng respectively) and generally recall everything you’ve ever loved about Dying Fetus, Skinless, Origin and Vile. Boasting thick, meaty riffs, crippling (triggered?) blasts, far-reaching (sometimes excessive) leads, tornado timeshifts and enough of an underlying groove to keep things cohesive and headbangable, Rise Of The Rotten doesn’t so muchreinvent the wheel as it does remind us how much we appreciate its legacy. Leather-throated frontman Søren Christensen (think Barney Greenway by way of Jason Netherton), whose vocal tracks are markedly prominent in the slick Tue Madsen mix, manages to sound unapologetically militant and surprisingly compelling for the disc’s 36-and-a-half-minute duration. Add to that the Tony Sandoval cover art of some malnourished demon-looking thing gnawing on a leg, song titles like “Executionroom,” “Dead Flesh Makeover,” and “Rise Of The Rotten” and traditional “death metal-y” lyrics centered around decay, tortureand deadies and what you have here is a damn good, if thoroughly familiar, party.

— Liz Brenner