GRUESOME - Twisted Prayers

Release date June 1/18 (Relapse)

Members of the Death To All tribute band had such a blast belting out Death ditties that they decided to create new music in the vein of Chuck Schuldiner's legendary outfit. To date the pattern has been to create homages to different albums/eras of the Death discography with each Gruesome release (in non-chronological order). There was the debut Savage Land that was inspired by the Leprosy opus, followed by a couple of EPs - the Scream Bloody Gore-referenced Dimensions Of Horror and then Fragments Of Psyche that was influenced by Human. Now we have the Twisted Prayers full length that is an homage to Death's Spiritual Healing album.

Anybody who has heard and appreciated Gruesome's previous releases will no doubt embrace this new one as well. The sound and vocals are so spot on, that you'd swear that it was actually a Death release. It's important to point out that they don't sound like carbon copies of the Death releases, rather, they sound like long lost albums that could have been released between the different albums of the Death discography. Way cool.

In this case, this is the album that would be the bridge between Leprosy and Spiritual Healing, with a heavier leaning toward the latter. The more melodic guitar work and lyrical references to societal themes are embraced, but there's still a bit of the bone crushing simplicity of Leprosy as well. Simply an enjoyable death metal romp.

[7.5]