STABBING

Like a sudden hammer attack in a pitch-black alleyway, STABBING creep up on you, with brutal, bloody consequences. Four years ago, the Texans emerged from the obscure shadows of the BDM scene armed with a debut album surprising everyone with its sheer ferocity. "Extirpated Mortal Process" was widely hailed as an impressive addition to the modern realm of savagery, and the involvement of vocalist Bridget Lynch ensured that this band were breaking new ground too. By no means the first female presence in a brutal death metal band, Lynch was plainly the most lethal and effective.

STABBING were unrelentingly intense and uncompromising, and their singer's vocal contributions were simply undeniable and firmly in the guttural tradition of SUFFOCATION, DEVOURMENT and other prized exponents of the form. A couple of lineup changes and a timely shift to a big metal label later, Lynch is back again, with the definite intention to leave her contemporaries reeling. "Eon of Obscenity" is an even more vicious and visceral display of technicality and thuggish force than its predecessor, and despite the ongoing deluge of new death metal bands, not least from Texas, STABBING continue to stand out as one of the current scene's most devastating acts: This shit will pummel you.

One of the most satisfying things about STABBING's second album is how they have completely evaded standard notions of how this kind of music should sound. There are no clinical drum samples or nailed-to-the-grid rhythmic conformity here. Instead, "Eon of Obscenity" churns and flails with real human force and emotion. The production is ugly and raw but utterly crushing. Lynch's vocals are determinedly abyssal and abhorrent. And thanks to a total lack of needless production polish, every song here sounds like it was designed to cause real damage.

The album starts with the 90-second cautionary clobbering of "Rotting Eternal", continues with the barbaric riff-riot of "Inhuman Torture Chamber", and then powers mercilessly through 30 minutes of untrammeled ferocity, underscored by some shrewd and subversive songwriting. The title track and "Ruminations" are explosive assaults designed to shock and disorient, "Nauseating Composition" (featuring SUFFOCATION's Ricky Myers) weaves old-school riffs together in a breathless blur of belligerence, while both "Their Melted Remains" and "Symphony Of Absurdity" expand STABBING's vision to suit more punishing, four-minute excursions with Lynch's versatile arsenal of growls and screams fulfilling the role of guiding (dark) light. Seldom concerned with indulgent complexity or virtuoso showboating, "Eon of Obscenity" is a sustained beating set to the grimmest and most gruesome of riffs. There are strong echoes of the genre's most revered players, from DEFEATED SANITY to GORGASM, but there is also a strong spine of perverse originality running through this short but nourishing blast of disgust. It may be too extreme for those with only a passing interest in modern death metal, but for connoisseurs of this stuff, "Eon of Obscenity" is utterly essential listening and yet another reason to hail Texas as a vital epicenter for contemporary brutality.