Stranguliatorius have taken me by surprise and were never previously on my radar. Hailing from the far reaches of Lithuania Flies Don’t Lie is their fourth album, and the band has been around since 2010. The band name almost had me thinking some ancient dinosaur from times past, and honesty I did not know what to expect from this band. The black and white album cover had me thinking, ” Oh, this is probably some brutal grindcore”, but alas, far from it.

Once the opening fuzzy riffs of “Funebraclav” come to life, it is evident the band is heavily influenced by early Autopsy, Obituary, and Rottrevore. Picture that guitar tone. And when I mean Autopsy I am speaking of their first 2 albums. The pace picks up, and Iggy has a putrid set of pipes and even lets out some Reifert-style yucky growls. The speed is mired in the late 80’s and early 90’s sound. There is a rawness to this act, and at times the sound comes across as a little loosey goosey, rehearsal tape sound. I think it’s more to do with the mix, which could have been better. There is a noiseness to the production, but the music owns. Especially the second song “Doctor Syringe” with the distorted bass and this is a very short song, but it’s heavy.

“They Who Don’t Sleep Will Not Wake Up” starts with a piano intro before the isolated fuzzy guitar riff brings forth the heaviness. As the rest of the instruments wake up, we are mired in a sludgy doom death pace, which is extremely heavy with some guitar harmonies creating an ambience of dread. The mid-paced heaviness gets going with the strictly old school death metal approach, and the organic nature of the instruments is well done; I would imagine this band is excruciatingly heavy in a live environment. The speedier moment, at the 2.50 section, is well done, but the galloping moment afterwards is much better, then it’s back to the swifter speed. The rhythm section at the 3.35 section showcases the heaviness with the guitars and bass guitar. Really a strong section with a lot of headbanging moments throughout this number. This must be in their live setlist.

“The Notes of the Deceased” is another short song at two minutes and gets things going with the slow opening section. A drum roll then takes us to the double pounding speed, and then the song gets back into the gallop, and the tempo shifts like this for a bit. There is some well-done guitar picking over the double pounding section, and the song slows things down with some buzzsaw-like riffage. This moment with the pained and anguished vocals are one of the stronger moments on the album.

Despite what I said about the grindcore, at the beginning, the band takes a little from that playbook, such as on “Flies Don’t Lie”, which is a few seconds long. “Stinks” was a single released prior to the album release, and the song does not stink!! Has a cool mid-tempo hoppiness to it with a terrific galloping moment that gets that circle pit moving at once. This is probably the best part, for me, on the album. This gallop takes me back to 1989, Severed Survival. The song eventually picks up the speed and a nifty tune, indeed.

I dig Stranguliatorius. I think they are a good death metal band, holding that banner of old, high, and proud. Flies Don’t Lie is good, but noisier than the band’s past albums. The mix/production has this sounding a bit demo-ish in parts. I do prefer the band’s prior album, from 2021, Doctor’s Orders: Do Not Touch!, since overall that sounded much better. Some things for the band to clean up, for the next release, are the production for sure. Other than that, this is good underground raw death metal!

[Visit the band's website]

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