To me, the band has always been the illegitimate love child of Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation, Despised Icon (just listen to “Cum With Disgust”) and Aborted. And maybe that mix has the band being a little too fringe for regular death metal or grindcore fans, an along with an irreverent and atypical sense of quirkiness in their work, and that does not change for Necrobreed, a completely blistering album that sees the band as locked into their sound as anyone in metal.

What separates benighted above and beyond their blend of grindcore, tech death and a little deathcore is the band’s ability to pen simply killer songs within and outside the confines of those genres. Their great big, beefy death metal riffs, grindcore expulsions and breeee filled grooves (another reason they might get left out of many ‘best of… ” death metal arguments”), is as tight, brutal yet catchy as anything being released right now or over the last few years.

As sudden, brutal and unexplainable as being assaulted by a gang of hammer wielding monkeys in a back alley, Necrobreed blast, burps and lopes with complete confidence. The 11 songs (there is an intro), all slay with ample brutality and heft, but the band adds enough little quirks and shifts for then to bee a little ‘out there’. Whether its the weird little bridge in “Leatherface”, gang chants and discordant DSO riff in “Der Doppleganger”,  lullaby/piano break in “Monsters Making Monsters” or the unbridled chaos that is “Reeks of Darkened Zoopsia”, the band is always doing something a little more off kilter than the average grindcore/death metal band.

But if it’s a simple beatdown you want, tracks like “Necrobreed”, “Reptilian”, “Forgive Me Father” (with a guest appearance from Trevor Strnad of The Black Dahlia Murder) and savage “Versipellis” deliver in spades with face melting abandon and crushing breakdowns. And frankly I’m not sure if a band has been as consistently ‘on’ for as many albums as Benighted has. Brutality has never been this fun, and it’s time we started talking abut Benighted in much more revered tones, though I’m sure the band would have none of it.

Other death metal acts may be all about the slaughter, but these guys are professional butchers. They take the best elements of their chosen genres and slice them down to their bloody essences: the speedy insanity of grindcore, the murderous lurch and bestial roar of brutal death, and grooves so deep they cut to the bone. Carnivore Sublime is one hugely entertaining track after another, each one expertly carved and served up like a juicy slab of meat. No gristle, no fat, just barely seared muscle all juicy and delicious. “Noise,” “Defiled Purity,” and “Collection of Dead Portraits” are some of my immediate favorites, but the entire album is fantastic from start to finish.

Julian “Truch” Truchan uses deep growls, guttural mutters, grindy shrieks and plenty of Deliverance pig squeals, and his restless approach keeps things varied and entertaining. Same goes for the songwriting – pacing and structure are expertly varied and arranged, with a careful balance between addictive groove and entertaining change-ups. It’s complex without being showy, and viscerally satisfying without being overly simple.

There’s also just the right amount of melody to keep the blood flowing. It’s definitely not melodic death, but it’s also far from monolithic. Listen below the thunder in tracks like “Experience Your Flesh,” “Slaughter/Suicide,” and “Les Morsures du Cerbure,” and you’ll hear hints of creeping dread and cataclysmic terror. (There’s also a nifty long pig nightmare of tribal cannibal percussion halfway through the title track which put a smile on my face.) These melodic strains elevate the songs above your average relentless beatdowns, and at times, reminded me of moments from the band’s one-time namesake.

Ever since fellow writer Larry Owens turned me onto Asylum Cave a few years ago, Benighted has become one of my favorite death metal acts in any sub-genre. Other similar albums have also satisfied that brutal death/grind bloodlust since then (Cattle Decapitation’s Monolith of Inhumanity and Aborted’s Global Flatline, to name a couple), but I have mostly been salivating for Carnivore Sublime. It was a meal worth waiting for, and one I will be regurgitating onto my year-end list come December.

France’s Benighted, now on their 5th album have bought forth not only one of their finest works but one of the most downright enjoyable and listenable death metal albums of 2007. What’s most impressive is how they are able to allow their violent tendencies to swing in uncontrollable fits of fury but then effortlessly harness all these constituents back into their control to converge them into a crushing, cohesive wall of sound.

They even take risks, risks that shouldn’t work, risks that if some bands even thought about trying to integrate into their sound they would be hung, drawn and quartered on the spot. This mob have no such problem, and the one moment of sheer lunacy that best exhibits this and which screams to me as SACRILEGE is near the close of ‘Grind Wit.’ Riding on the back on one of their numerous monstrous pile driving grooves, everything suddenly slows down and vocalist Julien begins to…rap, yes you read that correctly, rap, its brief but its there and guess what, it somehow meshes into the framework of the song.

Insane.

How they do it is still beyond me, I mean, imagine if Karl Sanders of Nile slipped some free-styling into one of his Egyptian epics, how the hell would that sound? Regardless, from then on the album continues to crush and impress until its conclusion. One of the numerous highlights is ‘Smile then bleed,’ featuring buzzing, whirring and scything riffing that bites and gnaws furiously through the speakers.

Benighted are on to something here and easily one of the most impressive European death metal bands in current circulation. Whereas Aborted seem to subside in their brutality and quality with each release its reassuring to know that there are bands like Benighted to offer a bludgeoning but daring and refreshing alternative.