Well, now, friends. What we have here is a swollen, pus-oozing freak of nature. A demon from the foulest depths of Hell, ugly and mutated beyond all imagination; something straight out of an H.P. Lovecraft book. Of course, I’m talking about the new Chained to the Dead… what did you think I was talking about?

Like I said, Something Happened on the Way to Hell is not only a fantastic album title, but it’s a ripper of an EP, and Chained to the Dead wastes no time in shoving you face-first into a gore-soaked orifice. “Rawhead Rex” is based on the Clive Barker book and film, and yeah, the song is billions of times better than the movie. Goddamn, that movie sucks… anyway.

After that initial skull fucking they trip you and “Just Before Dawn” comes surging like a bloody tsunami. It’s nasty and brutal as fuck. These guys make these crushing riffs that serve only as a way to meter out pain and suffering. There are flurries of blast beats thrown around just for good measure in both this track and the following track, “Return of the Deadly Spawn”, where they attack like a pissed off bunch of piranhas (see what I did there). This song is not as cute as a piranha, it’s ugly and mutated and just fucking gross and goddammit I fucking love it! Bravo, gentlemen, well done!

Come, Devil, come! The creeping intro to “She Who Kills” feeds itself to some rapid-fire drums and mind-diddling riffs. This is a brutal track that fucks you up like a ‘roid raging MMA fighter. There’s a slooooow part near the end that is filled with creepy samples and a downward spiral as the track ends.

I love good cover songs, and on Something Happened on the Way to Hell we get TWO. The prior EP, Only Hunger Remains, had “Blood Duster Double Feature” and “Games of Humiliation” by Blood Duster and Pungent Stench, respectively. Well, this time we’re regaled with the mighty Genesis and their swooning track “Misunderstanding”, followed hotly with the immortal spirit of Type O Negative and the cover/ montage “Unsuccessfully Coping With the Loss of Type O Negative”. The former sticks pretty close to the source material, complete with the whoo-ooo-ooo parts. But it’s different with Type O, because of course it is, and they were always extremely whacky to begin with; so it’s no wonder that they rip into the track with undead hunger. There’s blasting galore, right from the get-go go and holy fucking shit, Chained to the Dead have a blast (literally) with their rendition that devolves into a hypnotic montage of every fast beat Type O Negative ever made.

Chained to the Dead have wowed me again. A full-length album would be great, but for now, Something Happened on the Way to Hell is the Death Metal fun that we need in these tumultuous times of uncertainty and duress.

You know what is next: if you love Pungent Stench, 200 Stab Wounds, Fluids, and Organ Dealer… get this fucking EP! Run, don’t walk, to your local mom and pop record store and demand it!

 

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