UNDEATH

Let's drill straight to the bone: "More Insane" is the best death metal album of 2024. It may even be the best death metal album of the last few years. It is certainly the one album most likely to unite old and new fans of the genre in appreciation of a band that is doing it properly, and with more guts and guile than most.

UNDEATH have been edging towards heavyweight status for a while now. Both of the band's studio albums to date have been critically lauded and wholeheartedly embraced by death metal nerds the world over, but even with those expectations taken into consideration, "More Insane" is an absolutely fucking colossal leap forward. From songwriting and production to a very purposeful air of superiority that permeates every riff, this is such a precocious show of strength that there will be little dispute about UNDEATH's lofty position on the modern death metal podium.

Let's talk about perfection. "More Insane" is an astonishing showcase for how much UNDEATH have evolved since debut "Lesions of a Different Kind" (2020),  but it is also so all-encompassing and masterful that it rapidly feels like a new blueprint for modern death metal in its grotesque entirety. As with kindred spirits like FROZEN SOUL and NECROT, UNDEATH are great songwriters, great musicians and restless, inquisitive souls, hell-bent on driving their beloved genre in the most righteous and impactful way. "More Insane" comprises ten diverse but brutally focused songs that straddle old-school purity, tech-death tenacity and new school steeliness. Teaming up with legendary studio guru Mark Lewis has chipped away at some of UNDEATH's underground fogginess, and every one of these incredible tunes smashes and slices with great clarity, despite still sounding like a runaway bulldozer equipped with heavy weaponry.

Preview singles "Brandish the Blade" and "Disputatious Malignancy" (check out the superb stop-motion video!) made it plain that "More Insane" was going to be formidable proposition. The former threads evil melodies and classic metal histrionics into a tapestry of thuggish riffing, while the latter is a mutant explosion of East Coast death metal contortions with a groovy fluidity redolent of CARCASS in their "Heartwork" pomp. These are utterly monstrous, but fiendishly catchy and memorable songs, imbued with the spirit of classic records like ENTOMBED's "Wolverine Blues" and UNLEASHED's "Shadows In The Deep", but highly strung and horribly hostile in a distinctly contemporary manner. UNDEATH nail the malevolent pomposity of mid-'90s MORBID ANGEL on the obsidian death march of "Sutured for War"; they toy with the darkest parts of gothic metal and thrashy melo-death on "Detachment of a Prophylactic in the Brain", which boasts multiple lethal hooks, some demented bursts of speed and a dizzying segue from primitive chug to lithe, tech-death splendor; and on the closing "Bones Clattering in the Cave" (yes, UNDEATH give great song title),  vocalist Alexander Jones negotiates skewed time signatures and swarming, panzer-trail riffs to deliver one of the great Neanderthal soliloquies of our time.

In truth, the fine details are really beside the point. UNDEATH have come of age and delivered an album of such power, strength and quality that everyone, from ageing death metal kids (hi!) to fresh-faced new converts should soon be screaming its greatness from the rooftops and blasting it at maximum volume. It's a monster. Now let's see what everyone else has got.