Album Review: DeathCollector - Death's Toll
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
We’re not halfway through the year yet and already we have some storming releases from some of Death Metal’s most established players. Obituary’s Dying of Everything is further proof that the Florida legends rarely put a foot wrong; and superlatives hardly come close to describing Terrasite from Cattle Decapitation.
Yet, if you’re in the mood from some new, but old at the same time, then look no further than Death’s Toll, the debut full-length from DeathCollector, a collaboration of established musicians working in the Extreme metal field - see how I side-stepped the term: ‘Supergroup’ – with bands like Bolt Thrower, Severe Lacerations, Ashen Crown and Zealot Cult.
From the get-go, Death’s Toll kicks off with a big guitar sound and a dirty, grinding vocal, showing that intensity is not exclusively related to Beats per Minute. There’s a grooving section leading into Mick Carrey’s solo, although this does not detract from the overall atmosphere of the track. Coarse Visions and Internal Expansion take this mid-pacing and runs with it into moments of nostalgia; hearing those evil strings and screaming bends puts you in mind of the early Morbid Angel records, when Trey damn-neared tortured his guitar.
As with all the best Death Metal albums, DeathCollector aren’t shy about mixing up the content. To sit alongside the mid-paced tracks, Death’s Toll gives us Mental Hedonist, taking the sound of Bolt Thrower and Deicide and adding ominous, spiteful guitar as well as an Andrew Whale bass kick that is liable to move mountains. Terrorizer – has to be a speedy one with that name – is all about the skipping drums and grooving guitars until it takes a turn at the mid-point, slowing the pace right down and moving at a snail’s pace while still maintaining the ferocity.
The band do the opposite on the band-titled track and on A Taste of Ichor, where they begin with a lumbering tempo, wringing darkness and despair from every single note. Kieran Scott adopts a split personality, combining whispered vocals, in the vein of Mayhem’s Attila, with barely legible grunts. The initial pace on DeathCollector gives it a Doom Death feel, until it picks up its pace at the halfway point. Further exploring the slow and lumbering parts of the song and unpacking it to the end could have made an even more memorable track.
When …Ichor presses the accelerator it does so with the warning of Lee Cummings’ rumbling bass, foreshadowing the adoption of machine gun riffs and slamming vocals. The album ends with a couple of songs where Kieran goes all brutal and voices Revel in the Gore and Rearview Guilt with grotesquely filthy and infectious growls.
Considering DeathCollector started as a way to pass the time until the world came to its senses – still waiting on that – leading to the creation of the Time’s Up EP; and that the band used the technology to come together, with Mick’s guitar parts being recorded remotely from Ireland, it is a testament to the skill and talent of those involved to have produced such a raw and unbridled album.
To all intents and purposes, Death’s Toll sounds like it was recorded in one take, by a band absolutely assured of the material. And, as accomplished as it is, it will be when DeathCollector get out on the road that its real majesty will be felt.
As it is, when the Death-heads are making reconning of this year, Death’s Toll should be taking a pretty high place on the list.
