Germany's CORROSIVE play straight-ahead Death Metal with a faint waft of melody and atmospherics, just enough to make the 12-track blast fest, "Nourished By Blood", palatable enough for one sitting. OK, you might want to take a water break at some point or just go outside and see the sun and breathe a sigh of relief that the world hasn't been torn asunder in some sort of World War III apocalyptic hellscape. That's where you are taken, right off the bat, in the ominous and vaguely synthy "Intro" that leads into the first full track, "Bleeding By The Beast". There's an eerie melodic quality here that feels faintly Deathcore, with vocalist Andy coming in hot with the occasional blackened fry scream, ala BLACK DAHLIA MURDER. That kind of variation is welcome, as the underlying backbone to this album is sheer brutality, punctuated by the earth-shaking drumming from Timo (with the assist from a talented sound engineer or two).

While DYING FETUS, NILE or DECREPIT BIRTH may go for dizzying riffs and time signature changes, CORROSIVE brings attitude, sonics and a taste of the black arts into their work. "Field of Corpses," the designated YouTube lyric video single off the album, showcases each one of these sides. It features an extended intro with mini palm-muted breakdown leading into a BEHEMOTH-esque croaked verse over Inferno-style blast beats. "Sleep Paralysis" has a dark atmosphere with a tasty use of pinch harmonics. The band feels a lot like old-school worshippers BLOODBATH or ABORTED in their most playful moments, like on the absurd, but amusingly earnest cover of the "Ghostbusters" theme song that closes the record out.

The guitar work is a lot of palm-muted open-string chugging, but with some interesting variation and hints at progressiveness, like on "The Holy Priest," a track that gets into a STRAPPING YOUNG LAD-esque groove at one point. "Shrunken Head Necklace," despite the title, might be the best attempt at a full-on melody with its vaguely nu-metal sounding chorus. The award for most left-field song however goes to "God Gives," an outstanding track with some interesting atmospheric choices like child narration and heavily reverbed clean guitar passages, all while selling a chorus of "God just doesn't give a fuck about us."It's a five-star track that I'd love to hear a whole album of, appropriately slotted toward the tail end of the record, and right before the closer "You Don't Leave Me Alive" comes on to bring back the rote brutality one more time.

A lot of times modern Death can be too complicated for its own good, or even too meta or self-referential, so it's refreshing to hear a record that's sufficiently brutal, but also hints at a larger melodic and-dare I say it-artistic purpose. It's sonically proficient on every level and, if nothing else, should be a quick treat for any fan of the well-worn genre.<