Reassembled In Pain is an apt title for Chthonic Deity’s debut EP. The outfit, featuring members of Blood Incantation, Scolex and Ascended Dead dig up, dismember and reassemble the corpse of death metal yet again as so many have done in the ongoing OSDM revival. Naysayers tend to write off death metal revivalists as unimaginative and boring, but Chthonic Deity demonstrate that they have the chops and the grit to get the job done right.
Opening cut ‘Drained’ comes to life with a rowdy drum fill and a slew of riffs hat have all the heft of death-doom heavyweights like Dead Congregation or Funebrarum. The drums whip forward with punk-meets-Autopsy energy while some natural Blood Incantation influence makes itself felt in the slower cosmic harmonies, especially on ‘Echoes of Death’. The production makes these four short songs creak and rumble along like an especially decomposed and fragile Frankenstein. If that sounds like a whole lot of bands jumbled together with a nice new bow on top, well it is, but it’s a damn sight better than just being the 50th Entombed clone.
Chthonic Deity aren’t going to change anyone’s mind on OSDM revivalists. People tend to love it or they don’t and that isn’t likely to change. On the other hand, Reassembled In Pain is a succinct release that wears its influences on its sleeve and has the requisite moxie to make it all work.
Reassembled In Pain is released via Carbonized Records on 31st October and can be purchased here.
Words: Brett Tharp
