AUTOPSY

Still building up speed as they hurtle towards the grave, AUTOPSY have conjured another batch of obnoxious outbursts, barely a year after the release of last year's "Morbidity Triumphant". That album was another high point in a career full of them. In particular, since reconvening in 2009, the Californians have been on consistently great form. No one expects "Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts" to be an epoch-shattering milestone like 1991's unassailable "Mental Funeral", but the sheer quality of everything the band have released over the last 14 years bodes well for their ninth full-length. When it comes to filthy death metal delivered with a swivel-eyed swagger, no one else comes close.

The storm of innards begins immediately: "Rabid Funeral" is classic AUTOPSY on every level, with breakneck riffing, unholy solos and Chris Reifert's caveman drumming combining to give everyone a cranial prolapse. Production values have certainly entered the band's thinking over the years, but in sonic terms this is still raw, ragged and real, and a reminder that death metal is supposed to evoke the rotten stench of decay. Defiantly weird, AUTOPSY veer off on a nauseous, psychedelic tangent towards the end of the song, loping and lurching through a landscape built from skulls and offal.

In contrast, "Throatsaw" goes straight for the jugular (presumably with a saw) with three minutes of tweaked-out death-punk, laced with foul lead breaks and a feral Reifert vocal. Completing a hat-trick of future classics, "No Mortal Left Alive" takes AUTOPSY back to the foul doom of "Mental Funeral", as swathes of treacly and twisted Sabbath riffs are ambushed by a staccato, militaristic pulse that revels in its own primitive power. Whatever Reifert is screaming about, it definitely ends with everybody dead.

Thereafter, "Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts" is very much the expected riot of unhinged gore and serial killer aggression. AUTOPSY sound as potent as they ever did, and songs like "Well Of Entrails" and "Lobotomizing Gods" come across as outright celebrations of the band's seminal sound, with all the scabby, slow-motion sludge and visceral, white-knuckle speed-bombing that any fan could wish for. From the grimly groovy, skewed thrash of the title track to the harrowing death/doom demolition of "Coagulation", everything crackles with demented energy. AUTOPSY are snotty and succinct when they want to be ("Toxic Death Fuk" is a terrific hardcore punk tune),  but where they truly excel is in bending death metal to their own, wicked will. "Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts" is another master class from the genre's most unique architects. May the filth be with you.