AT THE PLATES

Even in the occasionally cerebral metal underground, there should always be room for silliness. AT THE PLATES are a death metal band in the same pun-loving, mischievous vein as CANNABIS CORPSE, but with songs about cooking, food and other dietary issues instead of weed.

Ostensibly a solo project for multi-instrumentalist Tony Rouse, the band have expanded into a three-piece and made a second full-length album: always a telling test of a novelty band's staying power. On their debut, "Starch Enemy", AT THE PLATES had some inspired song titles ("Pull The Pork", "Infecting The Crepes" and particularly "Considered Bread") and a neat line in gruesome but melodically inclined death metal. On the follow-up, the puns may not be of the same chortle-worthy quality (although "Terminal Filet Disease" is a certified winner),  but Rouse's musical vision has expanded and become a much more serious business. Apparently inspired by personal health struggles and a wholesale rethink on his own diet, "Omnivore" feels less like a series of in-jokes and more like an unexpected coming of age.

In truth, the comedic value of the whole enterprise becomes redundant after it becomes clear that AT THE PLATES are a credible and enjoyably nasty musical force. These songs pilfer cheerfully from both European and American death metal, with occasional detours into icy dissonance and recurring evidence of a progressive streak. The sparse, instrumental title track aside, "Omnivore" is a raw and ragged extreme metal record, but with the old-school spirit of invention blazing away at its heart.

"Roastwell 47" encapsulates the Plates' sound perfectly: a dizzying blur of ideas both familiar and alien, it twists the melodic death metal blueprint into a horrifying new form, harnessing the scrape-laced grooves of GOJIRA along the way. Similarly, "Open Buffet Surgery" starts as a VOMITORY-style death metal basher, before Rouse and his cohorts lurch off in several disquieting directions, sprinkling globules of poisonous discord over a framework of ugly, nefarious doom. Elsewhere, "Incarnated Syrup Abuse" heartily embraces old-school metal melody and a traditional thrash gait, completing the bloody picture with a craftily catchy chorus; "Punish My Waistline" is a sharp and strident plundering of GRAVE and BOLT THROWER's riff arsenals; and climactic colossus "Northern Frites" brings Gothenburg vibes and some bonus frostiness to the moonlit party, as vocalist Mario Alejandro revels in his majestic surroundings and spits fire at the sky over oppressive, melancholy riffs and thrilling bursts of speed.

Ultimately, the humorous elements of "Omnivore" are a distraction. There may be people out there that think that a song title like "Into Everlasting Fryer" is comedy gold, but the real, best reason to listen to AT THE PLATES is that "Omnivore" is no laughing matter. Bon appetit!