CD Review: Altitudes & Attitude – Altitudes & Attitude

CD Review: Altitudes & Attitude – Altitudes & Attitude
MRI 
All Access Rating: A-

Altitudes & Attitude - S/T 2014

They've got their "Booze and Cigarettes," they're "Here Again" and they're going to "Tell the World" that bassists, contrary to the recent opinion of Carcass's Jeff Walker, are not just failed guitar players.

Maybe at some point they did give up on playing guitar as their main means of creativity and source of income, but Anthrax's Frank Bello and Megadeth's Dave Ellefson aren't sitting around crying about what might have been. In early 2014, they released a joint EP under the name Altitudes & Attitude, and it wasn't what anybody expected.

Because they hold down the low end for two of the Big Four, Altitudes & Attitude was bound to bear no small resemblance to Anthrax and Megadeth. Either that or it would take the form of some inscrutable bass-heavy experiment that only bassists would enjoy or even understand. Instead, they leaped out of their comfort zones and made an EP of straightforward, melodic – some might even call it "radio friendly" – hard-rock with clean, modern production, life-affirming energy and surprisingly strong, charismatic vocals from, of all people, Frank Bello, who's never really been thought of as lead singer material.

And while both Bello and Ellefson both play guitar on Altitudes & Attitude, although that's Gus G.'s serious fretwork searing the brass-knuckled, hard-charging closer "Here Again" till it's scorched, there's plenty of room for them to take lead on bass and give the instrument its due, exploring all of its potential to form dynamic melodies and well-developed hooks. More impressive is the songwriting, with "Tell the World" an affecting, and ultimately hopeful, yearning for inner transformation and an appeal to mankind's better nature.

There is, however, a reason why "Booze and Cigarettes" was the group's first single, this rousing, uplifting anthem with slashing guitars, driving drums – courtesy of Jeff Friedl, from A Perfect Circle, who control tempos beautifully here – and Bello, all heart and soul, belting out the words as if his life depended it. Their attitude will help you get to a new altitude.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Exhumed – Necrocracy

CD Review: Exhumed – Necrocracy

Relapse Records

All Access Rating: A-

Exhumed - Necrocracy 2013

For those about to die in the most gruesome, horrific ways imaginable, Exhumed salutes you. As gory as the busiest of abattoirs, records from these grisly Bay Area grindcore ghouls take a backseat to no one when it comes to painting revolting scenes of blood-splattered, dismembered corpses and how they got that way.

The sicker the better for guitarist/vocalist Matt Harvey, the lone original member of Exhumed left standing after more than 20 years of lineup instability, and he appreciates the sacrifice of those who have shuffled off this mortal coil in shockingly violent fashion. For without them, he’d have nothing to sing about – well, except politics, that is. And relationships, societal decay and economic distress … see there’s more going on with Exhumed than meets the eye. Take Necrocracy, Exhumed’s upcoming release for Relapse Records, for example.

Decomposing flesh and maimed bodies make for not-so-subtle metaphors of a bloated U.S. political system being drawn and quartered by corruption, greed and the erosion of civil rights in the punishingly heavy, high-velocity death-metal of “The Rotting,” the title track and “Carrion Call.” Or maybe Exhumed just enjoys a good lyrical blood feast now and then.

Whatever the case, Necrocracy – due out in August – also happens to contain some of the meatiest riffage of Exhumed’s tortured lifespan. Mauling, churning guitars, back-breaking tempo changes, frenzied blast beats and cave-deep growls and feral screeching reanimate an Exhumed that still looks to traditional thrash and death-metal misanthropes like Carcass and Entombed as mentors of death-metal mayhem. Thatching together a multi-layered bulletproof vest of overlapping, ever-evolving guitar parts and low-slung bass rumbling, Exhumed mines an infectious, visceral groove in “Coins upon the Eyes” that’s resistant to antibiotics, while “Dysmorphic” grinds flesh, tendons and bones into hamburger with flesh-tearing hooks of great tensile strength, unstoppable momentum and searing guitar leads – all of it bridged briefly with a rickety acoustic passage of evil that portends doom.

There is melody to be found in the surprisingly well-sculpted twin-guitar figures planted throughout Necrocracy and the rare progressive passages unearthed in “Sickened,” but there’s gold to be discovered in the mountains of furious, doom-laden riffs on Necrocracy, not to mention the demented, contorted dynamics that twist the dizzying “The Shapes of Deaths to Come” and “(So Passes) the Glory of Death” into impossible metal yoga positions.

Not addicted to speed anymore, Exhumed takes obscene pleasure in witnessing the trudging, writhing agony of their complex instrumental movements, but when the time is right to go on a murderous sonic rampage, they never hesitate. Necrocracy is a pit of sinister, angry pythons slithering all over each other and ready to squeeze the life out of anything that engages it. It goes down a maze of dark scary alleys that reek of death, and it runs with the bulls, almost hoping to get gored. Though they add demonic texture at times, the terrifying vocals can be a little much, as are the excessive and sometimes gratuitous lyrical autopsies performed here. Dig past that, and Necrocracy rewards bravery and a strong stomach.

– Peter Lindblad