Death Metal, since the first half of the 90s, started to show a great musical diversity. The noisy and distorted music gained many musical influences from many musical styles: melodies from traditional Heavy Metal (and then, Melodic Death Metal was born), Jazz technique (this is the legacy of names like NOCTURNUS gave to Death Metal), slow tempos from Doom Metal, and many more. But to some bands, to keep as close as possible from what DEATH, MASTER and POSSESSED created on the mid of the eighties is a matter of attitude. So we can say EMBALMER, a Death Metal quintet from Ohio (USA), is doing thing on this way on the new album, "Emanations from the Crypt".

This fact is not strange, because the band started their activities on 1989, had some hiatus between from 1997-1998 to 2005, but since them, they are spitting a brutal form of music, that is sometimes as fast as you can think, or a bit more slower, but totally in a traditional Death Metal way. Guttural grunts and harsh screams, powerful and crude guitars, and a heavy weight rhythmic kitchen, but these elements are not bounded together in a simple way. They show some technique, event staying as brutal and nasty as their earlier influences. It's the old and good from of the style with some brutal and newer influences.

The sound quality is raw, as many fans like Death Metal to be. But you can hear clearly what these coroners are doing with their musical instruments. Of course, it's not perfect at all (some tunes on the guitars could be done in a better way), but it tries to be done in the most traditional way possible. So no complains about it.

There are eleven brutal songs of explicit violence, all of them with something very good to present us. But I dare to point to some of them as their best shots: the brutal and fast tempos imposed on "I Am the Embalmer", with its nasty guitars and harsh grunts; the raw and putrid slow tempos showed on "Emanations from the Crypt" (what shows a good work from bass guitar and drums); the explosion of aggressiveness "Undead Exaltation", the slow and bitter "The Casket Calls" (what wonderful slow tempos and very good work done by the vocals, fitting perfectly on the instrumental parts), the fast and furious ones "Botched" (with harsh guitar riffs attacking our ears) and "Reduced to Human Scum" (with very good work on the rhythmic session of the band), and the last nail on the casket called "The Apocalyptic Rains".

They are talented, but beware of your ears!<