Album Review :
Abated Mass of Flesh - Eternal Harvest
By Mason Beard in Reviews | 5 Comments
Abated Mass of Flesh has dropped their second album this year! In other words, their third. I guess they’re making up for lost time.
The album starts with “Premonitions of the Infected”. The song brings a fast, heavy and brutal drum track and thick guitar tones. I mean THICK. Deathcore and grindcore don’t usually get a great rap or a great deal of listeners, but I recommend to fans of Impending Doom or Broken Flesh or A Hill to Die Upon for sure.
“Drowning Beneath” was the album’s first single. The track starts off thick and heavy, makes ya wanna get up and mosh until your drenched. Matt Plunkett’s delivery of the vocals is almost understandable by this point. It’s a lot clearer since the band’s first release of Moth and Rust in the Temple of Putridity back in 2011.
“The Longest Thorn” sounds really like a regular death metal bands, such as Carcass.The track really barely touches deathcore, and stays more focused on pure technical death metal, until the breakdown comes in. The technicality remains, but in a much slower capacity.
“Violence” has finally appeared on an album! This song is probably the most popular song Abated Mass of Flesh has ever had. It’s what got me into them. This a re-recorded version of the song, but it still holds the same brutality it did years back. Technical deathcore comes to a new high, in part due to the dual screams and the amazing breakdown. After the breakdown, the band breaks into a much faster, much heavier and much grittier pace than the original.
“Cavern” features ‘Sammy Slamdance’ of Abyss Walker. The track starts off slow and thick, but picks up the pace into a thrash/death metal oriented tempo. The song demonstrates a lot of Plunkett’s low gutturals. Sammy comes in around the 1:30 minute mark, with super guttural/black metal hardcore vocals. That’s the best way to describe it without listening to it.
“Avulsion” is the sixth track on the record. It starts off with a digital synth click thing…I’m not real sure how else I could put that. That goes away a measure in after the band gets the grips of the brutal guitar tones. The song is probably the shortest on the record. And it’s instrumental. If you have a friend that doesn’t like metal cause of the vocals, show them this song, and they will eat it up.
“Deathcrusher” has also joined the album. “Deathcrusher” was my favorite song off of the EP with the same name and I’m so glad it’s on this record! The track starts off muffled and then Drummer Riley Wingate plays an awesome fill to bring them out of that. The track once again shows how professional the band has gotten over the years, with new beats and production quality.
“Descended Upon the Deceased” is the 8th and final track on this amazing third album. The track is very deathcore oriented, with little tastes of technical death metal. Zach Plunkett and Thomas Wingate did amazing jobs with the guitars and the tones they dialed in.
Eternal Harvest is definitely an album I recommend for fans of heavy music. I hope you check this album out at Bandcamp and download it. Definitely the heaviest album I’ve heard all year.
For Fans Of: A Hill to Die Upon, As They Sleep, Impending Doom, Broken Flesh, Carcass
I remember them from their “Moth and Rust In..” album, and while I really didn’t like them back then, I have to admit they’ve come a long way. I’ve never loved bands where I can’t make out the lyrics even with the use of a lyric sheet, and AMoF doesn’t quite win me over in that regard. But their production is so much better than it used to be, everything sounds thick and balanced, nothing is noticeably overbearing like I remember from their early work. I’m a little surprised at the 5/5 rating though. The review reads more like a… Read more »
Well, I’ll try and put this in a nice way, but AMOF isn’t really a band you go to listen to for melody and singing. I really liked this album. So much so, that it’s probably gonna make my top 10 list for the year. It was just really good for a heavy metal fan, like myself.
Hahah yeah no doubt, I just mean that if I lose my place in the lyrics during his gutturals, I probably won’t be able to find my place afterwards. The highs are solid, but I don’t get any sense of rhythm from his lows, it’s like one consistent syllable that bores me quickly. I understand that’s part of the genre, and also why I’m not a huge fan of the band. I simply saw a perfect score for the album and got curious, like I said, I didn’t get that perfect score feeling from what you said in the review.… Read more »
“mosh until your drenched”
Matthew, WHY?!?!
I knew there was a better I could’ve worded that