GOD AMONG INSECTS

There's a thin line between paying intuitive homage to the classic sounds of yesteryear and churning out a load of old dross way past its sell-by date. GOD AMONG INSECTS have most certainly landed in the latter camp with an unceremonious thump, and could do well to remember that you can smother everything as much distortion as you can muster — the smell of regurgitated trash will always seep through.

For this is what the Scandinavian supergroup have attempted to do by tuning their guitar strings down so loose that the slightest gust of wind would actually tear them away from the necks. Certainly, people such as Emperor Magus Caligula (he of DARK FUNERAL and frontman here) and Tobben Gustafsson (drums in VOMITORY and here also) should know better than to shove a mess of third-hand AUTOPSY moments on the death metal hordes. All that can really be said about something like "Purified In Carnage" is that it's riffs and arrangements were evidently bundled together in less time than it takes to heat and eat a microwave meal. You're left wondering whether it's actually one big joke because if this track wasn't meant to be, then "Wretched Hatching" is, intentionally or otherwise, comedy moment of the year so far: it is laughably ludicrous how such throwaway stuff ever made it to CD beyond 1991. Only "Uhr-Nazuur" comes through initially with some blastbeat-driven rage, only to wind the album down with a labouring sloth of a riff that makes BOLT THROWER sound like masters of fretboard invention. Bad. Very bad. And those titles: "Headless Nun Whore", "Chainsawed Christians", "Severe Facial Reconstruction". In a word, yawn.

The real travesty is that with the thirst for all things old school, and this being recorded with Tommy Tägtgren at the credible Abyss studios, "World Wide Death" might shift a few copies. Don't be fooled though — this is a cynical, easy option of an album that doesn't even deserve space in the bargain bins.