Stages of Decomposition – Piles of Rotting Flesh (Gore House Productions, 2014)

In the most recent edition of my Oodles of Brutals series, I proclaimed that Stages of Decomposition’s Piles of Rotting Flesh just might be the slam album to beat in 2014 based on the two teaser tracks that were available at the time.  I’ve now had the pleasure of hearing the entire album thanks to our friends at Gore House Productions, and as a result I can officially say that my prediction was correct (how often does that happen?); the Los Angeles-based power trio have one hell of a debut full length on their hands.  This ain’t no hyperbole kidz, this is a genuine example of a young band kicking open the gates and setting the bar.

Oodles of Brutals III: Tech Death and Other Delights

It’s been quite a while since I did one of these (over a year, to be slightly more precise), but frankly there hasn’t been a whole lot of new stuff on the brutality front that’s really tripped my trigger of late.  In fact, it’s only been within the past month or so that enough gory goodies have piled up to make it worth doing. The initial two installments of Oodles of Brutals were all about slam and brutal death metal, but this time around we’ll mostly be focusing on tech death.  I’m pretty darn picky about this stuff, as there is an extremely fine line between mind-bending technicality and “Hey, look what we can do!” fret-wankery, so it’s a bit of a surprise that so much of this stuff has been able to grab me, but it’s a neck-snappingly pleasant one.  Let’s dive in…