Review by JD on February 5, 2013.

I had been reviewing a whole lot of Death Metal lately, and finding it becoming repetitive and rather weak. Italian based Humangled was another Death Metal band sent for me and I was not very excited at this time. The last few Death metal albums I had reviewed were not stellar outings to say the least, so I was not getting my hopes up.

Taking cues from bands like Carcass and Death, Humangled sets out to play some very straight forward Death Metal of the mid 90's era with a slight injection of Death‘n’Roll in places. The five piece seems very competent musicians by what was being offered on their album "Odd Ethics", yet the music as a whole seems to lack any originality to it... and that is with having the help of the great engineer/multi-instrumentalist by the name of Dan Swano. I think Mr. Swano made this album sort of palatable, but even he could not work any miracles.

Across this extended EP, it comes clear that the band is set in copy mode, giving very little in the way of anything remotely original. They play standard Death Metal quite competently but that is about it as it becomes old very fast in the very first track. Humangled lacks the certain spark that is needed to get it to a place where they can stand out. That spark is developing their own sound and style.

In doing the Death Metal in a safe and standard way -meaning doing it like everyone else- they have produced a little lower than average Death Metal album even though they seem to possess the talent to do a fuck whole lot better. It is disappointing to say the least, especially when they had a good producer to help - and failed still.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 5
Atmosphere: 3
Production: 3
Originality: 1
Overall: 1.5

Rating: 2.7 out of 10