Autopsy - Macabre Eternal review
| Band: | Autopsy |
| Album: | Macabre Eternal |
| Style: | Death metal |
| Release date: | May 31, 2011 |
| A review by: | wormdrink414 |
01. Hand Of Darkness
02. Dirty Gore Whore
03. Always About To Die
04. Macabre Eternal
05. Deliver Me From Sanity
06. Seeds Of The Doomed
07. Bridge Of Bones
08. Born Undead
09. Sewn Into One
10. Bludgeoned And Brained
11. Sadistic Gratification
12. Spill My Blood
In case you don't remember, Morbid Angel released an album not long ago. People waited and waited for it, then, a good majority by the looks of it, felt burned when it came out. Burned and then, by the looks of it, sodomized. And then, by the looks of it, sodomized again.
Well, people waited and waited for this to come out too. But, unlike with Illud Divium Insanus, when this came out no Downfall, Hitler-bitching video was made for it. No RIP comments appeared under the youtube videos for this album. The death metal fanboys seem fairly pleased. As they should be. This is a solid death metal album by pretty much all standards. It's br00tal, mucky, and performed well.
And no risks were taken.
Macabre Eternal likely sounds exactly as you'd expect it to sound. Make of that what you will, but I guess I'm finally, reluctantly dawdling my way over to the camp where that's the source of some disappointment. Don't get me wrong, I love me some old school death metal, but stagnation and boredom are pretty much identical twins. And most of the songs on this album have either bored or come really close to boring me. If a death metal album is going to say "fuck off" to originality, it damn well better have some noteworthy songs, let alone riffs. And, for me, Macabre Eternal just doesn't have enough to be truly memorable. Almost all of the riffs are solid and headbangable, but few of them are interesting, and few songs evolve. The song structuring on this gets pretty tedious.
But ultimately this is an album for those seeking simple, brass-tacks, Autopsy-brand death. And nothing else. There's a slight doom metal influence, but there aren't any industrial tracks here. No songs to get your dance on to on this. Reifert, undoubtedly the star of the album, still sounds like a mad man, the atmosphere is still Autopsy-like?dirty and kinda eerie?and the riffs are still pretty fucking brutal. If that's all you want, that's what you're going to get from Macabre Eternal. And you should probably be pretty pleased with it, I suppose. Just don't expect anything very memorable. This isn't on par with Mental Funeral. Why? It's 2011. Not 1991.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 6 |
| Originality: | 6 |
| Production: | 9 |
 | Written on 20.07.2011 by Wormdrink's real name is George and he's an American. |
Rating:
8.3
8.3
|
Rating: 8.3 |
After 16 long years of waiting, the Autopsy death machine is finally back doing what they do best: making the purest, most sadistic, gore-filled metal. If I'm honest, this was probably THE album which I was waiting for this year ever since I read the first annunciation back in summer 2010. And let me tell you, Macabre Eternal was worth waiting for! Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 18
Visited by: 276 users
| X-Ray Rod Skandino Staff Posts: 18374  |
Meh. I Respect your opinion and sort of agree with the ratings except the songwritting. I found it pretty good. I would give it a 8,0 overall easily. There was no purpose on waiting that Autopsy was going to take a risk. No point of being dissapoint but I guess that's just me. If shit's not broken, don't fix it. So I won't even comment on the originality part. Like Craig wrote in the about the latest slayer: It's Autopsy folks... what the hell did you expect?
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| wormdrink414 Elite Posts: 1295  |
Written by X-Ray Rod on 20.07.2011 at 23:29 I didn't expect them to do anything too risky, but the dominating feeling I got from this was definitely minor boredom. I liked a lot of it, but none of it really got me going.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
Probems with this album is that it's too long. Had they kept it to 45 minutes it would have been so much stronger,
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Staff Posts: 18374 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 20.07.2011 at 23:55 Indeed, it would have been extremely tight. Taking off 20 minutes of what might have been filler would have mhelped the good riffs to shine a little more. Other than that, I don't see any problem.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by X-Ray Rod on 21.07.2011 at 00:03 Me too. I think if I were to rate it I would now give it an 8.1 whereas had it been shorter would come to an 8.8 or thereabouts.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Admin Posts: 15287  |
Too long and found the vocals incredibly annoying at parts... would have been much better cut to 40 minutes or so for starters.
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| Void Eater Account deleted |
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| AngelCorpse13 Posts: 24 |
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| garmling Account deleted |
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| Slayer666 Posts: 2466  |
I'm not much of a Death metal fan myself, but this album sure has some fucking sick songs. Who cares if they didn't innovate or take risks? Like you said yourself, this is 2011, not 1991. Pretty much everything has been done already. Any innovation we may expect from any genre will not come from an old-school, classic band like Autopsy, but from newer bands, trying to make something new so they get noticed. Sure, Morbid Angel experimented, but I said innovation, not total god damn shite posing as innovation.
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| wormdrink414 Elite Posts: 1295 |
Novel coming through... I really regret not mentioning the length. So much of the boredom probably stemmed from it. As to the originality issue, I brought it up, but was pretty careful to say that I was disappointed, not necessarily that you should be. Some reviewer arrogance, I know. I enjoy old-style stuff a lot, and frankly don't want much of it to change, but I expect energy, and sometimes flirting with other genres is a good source of it. And I don't get the sense that Autopsy had much when making this. Not sure though. I've poked around and read other reviews for this and almost all of them are overwhelmingly positive. "Autopsy=legends, therefore, they don't need to make excellent music to make an excellent album. As long as they don't pull a Morbid Angel" and so on. It's a good album (thus the 7.2) but not anything very memorable. To me. So I focused on the negatives. Bottom line, though, is that I fucked up by focusing on originality over the length of this. Even if the reason why the length is a real issue is because in it no risks are taken. I didn't find that newish Ex Dementia album boring because it's really only 19 minutes long, for example.
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Staff Posts: 18374 |
Written by wormdrink414 on 21.07.2011 at 23:34 Pfff you're just writing that because you're just into prog-like music you poser! XD Seriously, that comment from that user cracked me up.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| Devil Himself Posts: 3  |
Yeah i gotta agree about the riffs...they are still pretty brutal!!!
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675  |
This review proves yet again, that it's impossible for a band to please everyone no matter what they do! Morbid Angel were hacked to pieces for making changes to their sound, and now we have Autopsy being criticised for sticking to their signature sound... you truly can't please everyone.  I agree with a number of people here that the album would have had more impact had it been shorter. But I can see it from Autopsy's point of view though... none of the songs are actually bad, or even filler, so I can see why Autopsy didn't want to throw any of them away. But they could have chopped 4 songs off, and saved them for another EP or something, and the album would have benefitted greatly IMO. I really can't fault the songs themselves though... even with a slightly "cleaner" production, Autopsy still manage to sound sick, nasty and depraved, and they have retained the power to genuinely unsettle. "Dirty Gore Whore" in particular, with it's deranged vocals, and crazed, winding riffs sounds like the product of an actual psychotic mind! Brrr... I definitely disagree with the review, and as long as you're expecting nothing but pure old school Autopsy-like goodness, then I see very few people disliking the new album. I myself would give it somewhere between 8.5 and 9.0. Which would probably increase to 9.5 if it was a little bit shorter. xD
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Staff Posts: 18374 |
Written by Angelic Storm on 29.07.2011 at 10:52 I agree with you, that would have been a great idea musically (even marketing-wise, so everybody wins!) Or you can do as Void eater said: listen to one half and then the other later XD. But nah, I want my brutality without pauses.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Admin Posts: 15287 |
Written by X-Ray Rod on 30.07.2011 at 01:27 or just listen to something better. as with the latest Exodus, 'too long' implies more than just too much length in time, means not enough editing of ideas. not enough trimming the fat. means filler. i had a hard time sitting through it without getting bored. and when you get bored little more than halfway through something, it reduces your incentive to resume the experience later.
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Staff Posts: 18374 |
Written by BitterCOld on 30.07.2011 at 04:23 Meh, we have different thoughts of what too long means in that case.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| Mattybu Posts: 2589  |
Written by BitterCOld on 30.07.2011 at 04:23 That new Exodus album was an interesting one... I too agree that it was too long in both those ways, but naturally my listening style isn't to listen to whole albums at once and like waiting at the bus stop, a quick song or two while at Tim Hortons... It smashes. I guess it really all depends on the listener.
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