In my continuing efforts to ween myself off Lorna Shore and actually listen to other music, I randomly stumbled across the second album from Columbian death metal band  Casket Grinder, and holy hell does it kick all sorts of ass.

The album consists of the band’s split, ep, and demo material recorded prior to their 2020 debut Fall into Dementia, all rerecorded and rearranged, plus a new song and a cover of Pestilence’s “Suspended Animation” (one of my very favorite Pestilence songs FWIW). And regardless of the age of the songs (2013-2016?) they all deliver a blistering, catchy take on American Death metal.

I get foul notes of Deicide and Monstrosity’s full-on thrashier take on death metal. But there is a lot of other stuff at last as well.  A dash of the European scene (Asphyx, Sinister) and for a really obscure reference, I hear some of The Netherlands’  I.N.R.I’s debut album Hyper Bastard Breed, in the faster, relentless songs.  Then just add the innate South American intensity and razor-sharp guitars of say, Krisiun, and you get an incredibly satisfying buffet of styles.

And those intercontinental influences come together to form a very, very enjoyable death metal record that I have been giving a lot of air time to. The styles are melded seamlessly into a furious but also controlled 50 minutes. The production leans more into the cleaner Morrisosund of yore, with not a whole lot of bass, but the 11 songs all deliver everything you’d want on a death metal record.  I mean, go to the second track “Wheels of Convulsion”, or ” Stillborn Abomination”, “Celestial Devourment”  and “From the Abyss It Came” and tell me those do not scratch every single death metal itch you might have – blast beat, solos or slow stomp.

The brand new song “Acid Storm” follows suit, with maybe a little more control than the rest of the songs but shows these guys are consistent as fuck. My only minor gripe is the production for the Pestilence cover, which is way thinner and demo-sounding than the rest of the killer, from out of nowhere album.

[Visit the band's website]

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