MACHETAZO

Keeping track of the MACHETAZO discography would be a more thankless job than compiling an AGATHOCLES singles collection or transcribing a Barney Greenway thanks list... but I thought the last time I encountered these Spanish death freaks, they were on more of a CARCASS-worshiping bent. "Mundo Cripta", their deliriously sick new slab of grinding death metal, seems more enamored of AUTOPSY, REPULSION and NIHILIST — you know, the usual suspects found in every retro death metal band's bio.

But can there ever be too much of this stuff, especially when it's done by a band with this much history and obvious love for the sick and macabre? Many try to sculpt this dark and gruesome vibe out of the same rudimentary building blocks, but most of them fail. MACHETAZO put their few tricks to good use — a minor chord change here, a quick stop-start drum break there, mercifully brief movie samples and awesomely shitcanned blast beat frenzy all around — and the results faithfully resurrect the stinking corpse of '80s death metal once again.

There's no one "hit single" or standout track here; rather, little bits of homage pop up seemingly every second to strike the fancy of old-school fans. It could be as simple as the slow galloping beat that starts "Descenso Al Sotano de la Morbosidad", or the utterly prototypical, yet fist-in-the-air inducing, beginning to the fantastically-titled "Delirio El Pozo De Excrementos", but it usually has the desired Pavlovian effect. And yeah, there is still some CARCASS in the bubbling lye-and-dead-flesh stew, upon further stirring. I coulda done without the final track, which was all sample and obligatory spooky outro noises — save that room for another death metal anthem — but everything else here satisfies.

The whole thing is rendered down into a dank, gurgling slurry and presented with a dirty, low-budget sound and suitably zombified cover art, and all is right in MACHETAZO's festering wound of a world once again. Sure, "Mundo Cripta" is definitely one for only the faithful (and sick),but endless respect for kicking the cadaver for fifteen years, outlasting most of their countrymen, and still sounding as delightfully gore-soaked and hatchet-minded as ever. Worth hunting down.