Band:	Undeath
Album:	Lesions Of A Different Kind
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	October 23, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. Suitably Hacked To Gore [feat. Cody Davidson]
02. Shackles Of Sanity
03. Lesions Of A Different Kind [feat. Trevor Strnad]
04. Entranced By The Pendulum
05. Acidic Twilight Visions
06. Lord Of The Grave
07. Kicked In The Protruding Guts
08. Phantasmal Festering
09. Chained To A Reeking Rotted Body
10. Archfiend Coercion Methods

I'm in somewhat of a dilemma. How can I simultaneously be so tired of all these up-and-coming OSDM band and also be fancying so many of them?

I think you've noticed by now that it was increasingly hard for me to write about new death metal bands that come from this same wave of OSDM doomy murky cavernous stuff. Partly I am pushing myself to review these because of how relatively popular a lot of these bands are getting. And compared to any other genres, these generate the most hype in the underground through their EPs and demos. Hence why I'm covering so many of them in the Clandestine Cuts series. This one included. But for some reason I tend to not like them as much when they move to the full album phase, as it happened with Void Rot.

So when I'm listening to Lesions Of A Different Kind, the debut full length of Undeath, of course I have a big grin on my face with every riff, but I can say the exact same thing about a shitload of other bands. 35 minutes of mid-paced murky death metal is something that I absolutely need in my life, but if Undeath stopped existing, I'd have tens or hundreds of other bands to deliver the same fix for me. Some of them maybe even better. Now this doesn't mean that they're completely without value and I don't see the specific appeal that they have. Out of most of the newer death metal bands I listened to recently, they seem to have a real knack for the mid-paced area without necessarily going too much into doom territories. And no other band of this type gave me this many Cannibal Corpse if they were kvlt vibes.

There is a bit of doom in the sound, much more than there is skull-ripping-fast-paced death metal. I had a hard time counting that many blast beats for example. Which should be a bad thing, considering how much I love blast beats, but they manage to properly avoid them without it feeling like something is missing. Throughout its runtime, it's never really boring or awkward in any way, but there are also no "holy shit" moments. The vocals are also pretty monotonous to the point where the only time I felt they took a twist, it was because of a guest spot from The Black Dahlia Murder's Trevor Strnad. And because the band recently got expanded from a trio to a quintet, I'm not really sure if the new members appear on this record or not, which might explain the relative lack of interesting bass.

So I'm back in a weird spot. It's average not because it doesn't do anything good, it's average because there are so many bands out there pretty much like this. Being better at others at writing mid-tempo stuff does set them apart a bit, but there's nothing that will stick with me in the long run. I did massively enjoy listening to this though. As average as it is, I can't see anyone who is a fan of death metal not enjoying this, and I can see why this was so anticipated. The riffs twist in such ways that if this wasn't drowned in a sea of other bands, it would be very memorable.

I guess I need a break from death metal from a while. Call me when Charnel Altar release their debut. Until then I renounce reviewing death metal (or at least this year).