2026 is shaping up to be one helluva year for brutal slamming death metal releases. Sickbay, outta New York, has released two prior albums and a plethora of EPs. My man Brian, in charge of Ossuary Industries, as well as Dakota, know the free agents in death metal.
Seeing that Sickbay had been garnering some underground attention Brian, was like, we are getting this free agent to bring on over to our roster. What a fucking score this is. Jim Sinon on guitars, John DeVito on bass, Chris Puletz on drums, all welcome, and Nick Guglielmo on Vocals. Nick is a young whipper snapper, who played guitars for the band Scalpel Castration.
I will say this even with their super-strong Permanent Solution EP, in 2024, Time to Die is Sickbay’s strongest and best release to date. To categorize them as yet another brutal NY slam band, would be a bit of a disservice to the band. They inject something different to their brutality – Doom! The slams are a bit slower at times, than other slam bands, and Sickbay injects a creepy, crawly type of doom to their sound. It is most paramount on this release and damn, this album does slay, way to go Sickbay.
8 songs in half an hour, “Deathly Impulse”, sets things off. A doomy, yet heavy guitar riff gets piped in, then the slam hits at the 27-second marker, and it is ruthless. Nick has a killer set of growly vocals with varying tones. They go perfectly with the slam, and this opening slam may be the best opening slam riff I have heard in quite some time. The song picks up the pace, then right into that doomy, pounding slam. The way the slam is constructed has me thinking The Acacia Strain’s newer stuff. Doomy, sludgy, and pounding.
“Impending Doom” is up next, and the song title is perfecto. A monstrously heavy, slamtastic, doomy punch to the face, gut, and solar plexus. Simple, yet catchy riffing, to embed in your head for days on end. The speed and then groove speed get things going pretty quickly, then back to the doomy, crawly groove. This is so damn catchy, and the double bass, over the riff, is amazing. This song better be in their live set. The song gets into a slower downbeat groove that screams death/doom metal, actually, but done in a NY sort of way. Whatever the case may be, this is an amazing song and it all fits and gels.
You cannot be a NY death metal band and not have the word suffer as a song title or lyric. “Suffer” has some very cool parts with a variety of vocal tones shifting from raspy, almost black metalish screams, to gruff growls and twisted putrid vomitrocious, lower than whale shit type of gutturals. It’s terrific. The groove picks up the pace, once again with a strong drum section. Once the two-minute slam erupts, I am telling you, if played live, this slobberknocker of a section will knock people’s heads off from here all the way to the outer realms of space. Amazing growls and gross burps and belches as the crawling, stomping, doom slam hits some more. Suffocating in its heaviness, this song owns.
I really don’t wanna review anymore ‘cause I want you to head over to Ossuary Industries and get yourself this release and a shirt, but I’ll do one more song for ya. The last song, “Unholy Incantation”, has an amazingly heavy opening slam and a catchy riff. More of those gross, triple flusher toilet vocals, and I am loving the hell outta this track. Super slow. Super doomy. Yet it moves and grooves for you to shake that booty to. Once the metal ends, the song gets into a tribal type of jam. This goes on for a few minutes and is super catchy, as it mimics the earlier part of the song, just with some tribal injection. What a super fun way to end the album.
Yo Sickbay…pull up your bootstraps and get ready mofos. Get on tours and play live as much as possible all over N. America. Get your name out. Time to Die is a special slamming, brutal release. Injecting the doom elements and crafting slams that are not typical for this style, is original, forward thinking, and separates the band from a large amount of bands doing the brutal slam thing. What a fucking monster of an album, JFC!!
