Abominant – Battlescarred
These Kentuckian old-timers produced the brief but potent Battlescarred EP this summer, and if you haven’t heard them before, or if you have and are looking for a good/cheap DM time, this low-cost, limited release slice of Southern death is for you. Face-puncher ‘Pile of Flesh’ opens this short player with Abominant’s technical (but not annoyingly so) riffery, a death metal blend that has black metallish open chords infused throughout. These ride together atop drums that have a decidedly(?) demo-ish sound that embody the ‘you get in the studio, we’ll get the beers’ DIY aesthetic rarely showing up for this style. That same aesthetic carries across the rest of the EP, with a rhythmically brutal cover of Pestilence’s ‘Out of the Body’ (nice blast beats over the solo sections), and a blistering and humorous rendition of Black Sabbath’s ‘The Mob Rules’, prefaced with a fitting sample from the 1981 animated film ‘Heavy Metal’ (which featured the original track during a notable battle-‘scarred’ scene…heh, sorry).
Short album, short review, short story – get over to the Deathgasm distro and buy it. One hundred hand-numbered copies, heshers!-Jim
Self-released/Deathgasm Records
Worm Gear 