Canada's NECROTICGOREBEAST released their first full-length, "NecroticGoreBeast." Signed with Comatose Music, this album boasts everything one might expect: fast riffing, groovy slams, overly-produced, sickly guttural vocals and gore-soaked song titles.

While this is above most modern Brutal Death Metal and Slam albums, it still falls victim to the biggest problem in the genre: unoriginality. After my first listen, I did not remember what happened. I knew I liked what I heard; I just couldn't pinpoint any riffs I enjoyed because everything blended together after a while. It got to the point where my notes were the same for each song: "great riffing, groovy blasts, etc."

Seeming to pull plenty of influence from, of course, DEVOURMENT, the band shows nice technical prowess. "Flesh-Eating Ejaculation" is memorable for this especially. Midway through the track is an unpredictable technical break that dissolves into a groovy, obliterative slam. The technicality comes back with tracks like "Sterilized Infant Fleshdoll" or "Gagging on Feces" that have more of an INTERNAL BLEEDING type of technicality.

NecroticGoreBeast excels in songwriting. Each track progresses from riff to riff, from technical section to slam. Each slam - mind you, every song has three or four slams - is different. There are a few repeated slams here and there, but progression is this band's strong point. "Leprosy Induced Through Sodomy" is a perfect example of great songwriting with its many passages, riffs and tempo changes.

As outstanding as the songwriting is the album's structure. With the stronger songs closer to the core and end of the album, the record slips by with ease as the music increasingly gets better. It eventually reaches a point where the listener doesn't know what to expect because the music can oftentimes be unpredictable. Whether it's the tech break in "Flesh-Eating Ejaculation" or the harmonic-filled slam of "Half-Body Self-Amputation," there is no telling what will come next.

The album ends quite abruptly. "Half-Body Self-Amputation" just ends with a half-hearted fade-out, leaving the listener in silence as they try to make sense of what just happened. Again, the first listen is never easy for a band as musically inclined as this, but as a fairly short album, it is always easy to listen again.