Review by Frost on January 1, 2022.

You know, there's only so much "brutality" one can take before howling mercy. Hurling that word around ad nauseam for every album with downtuned guitars and dissonant chord progressions and gurgled vocals that sound more like a guy having a long agonizing bout of constipation is not what qualifies as "brutal death metal" for me and kind of waters down the word to the point where it's redundant. You know when you say a word so many times over and over and over to the point where the word sounds like a bunch of letters put together and the syllables sound alien in the end? That's what I feel the word "brutal" is becoming when describing something like this, and other albums of its ilk whose mere existence is to be the who's who of brutal death metal.

I found this beast on YouTube one day while randomly window shopping the metal wheelhouse I'm constantly entrenched in day after day. I saw the band logo, the grotesque cover art, and the title. My immediate thought was "I'm getting into brutal death metal a bit. I'm into Devangelic, Ingested, Skinless, Pathology, and some Devourment, too. I'm ready to add these guys onto that small, but growing list."

Boy, will that never happen in a million years....

This one's going to be hard because I've all but blocked every memory of this seventeen minute EP out of my mind. It's been almost a year since I stumbled across this gem and I've never listened to it since. But unlucky for me, I decided to listen to it again for the sake of this review. Where to even start? First off, let's jump on board and talk about the vocals. They're awful. Nothing of quality to be found here. I don't know if they pitch-shifted the vocals at any time during or after the production, but they don't sound natural. It sounds like they've been tampered with to some extent. Beyond that, they're just directionless pig squeals and deep gurgles. There are apparently lyrics, too, which rubs me the wrong way on so many levels. I've never understood why bands like this even need lyrics for people to follow along to. If the guy in the studio isn't going to bother to sound anything out and insist on growling indecipherable bullshit into the listener's ears, why even bother trying to make lyrics? It's easier to just insert your own lyrics when the quality of the vocals are this terrible. Even with bands that have vocalists that are criticized for having indecipherable vocals at times, they at least make an attempt to be understood and can be followed along if there are lyrics accompanying the rhythm and beat of the music. If not that, their vocalists certainly aren't competing to be the worst, most grating vocalists in human history.

The instrumentation isn't much better, either. The guitars may as well be being played by a spastic of crack cocaine, speed, LSD, or any drug combination thereof. Every riff soundds down tuned to absolute hell, and simplistic, caveman chugging taking the forefront of every single goddamn song. I mean it. Every song may as well have their riffs copied and pasted from one song to the other.

1) Take one chunky riff;
2) Play it;
3) Change up the pattern;
4) Copy and paste for seven more songs;
5) Repeat until the end

The drums? Just as equally atrocious. Nothing but blasting from start to finish with no hint of ceasing or allowing the listener to catch their breath even once with a slower moment of brutality. Same fills, same ceaseless blast beats, same drum patterns - it gets old really quick. Not to mention just how much technicality this thing lacks. Now I know that brutal death metal isn't known for its technicality, flair, or virtuosity. This I can understand and I realize that one of the caveats of this particular genre of music is that in its simplest form, it's meant to be as loud, abrasive, unappealing, and uncompromising as possible; but at the same time, there has to be a baseline level of quality from the musicians. They have to at least be able to play their instruments. Granted, the two Webers here, Rob and Chad Weber, can play their instruments. That's about all I can say, though. They at least have a general understanding of how guitars and drums work. For some listeners, that's all they need to be satisfied. This, however, does not satisfy me. This is awful stuff. The bass? There is no bass. I guess there's a bassist, but I don't like to have to force myself to find out where the low end is on an album. If the guitars are down tuned so goddamn low that they provide enough of the necessary rumble you need or turned up so loud that it swallows the bass, why even have a bassist to begin with?

I guess I should talk about the songs, too, but what is there to say? They all sound the same. There's no variation in the songs whatsoever. The only song I would say is tolerable is 'FleshRot'. It's the only song I would say that has an actual groove to it and has riffs that are played well and are actually synchronized with the other instruments, but that lasts about thirty seconds. Other than that, there's nothing here worth even a fraction of your time. There's nothing catchy or memorable that'll stick in your brain. Unless you're into this kind of "unrelenting br00tal death metal" that "separates the poseurs from the real metalheads," then more power to you, I guess.

As for me, I say avoid this thing, and this band, like the plague.

P.S. The production is shit, too.

Rating: 1 out of 10

Review by Death8699 on June 23, 2019.

Chicago's Cardiac Arrest has come out with their 3rd full-length album entitled Haven for the Insane, which is on their current label, Ibex Moon Records. The band was founded in 1997 and they released their first EP back in 2004. Their current lineup features Adam Scott on lead vocals/guitar, Tom Knizner on lead vocals/guitar, Dave Holland on bass/backing vocals, Jim Deabenderfer on drums/backing vocals and Adam Conrad on guest backing vocals.

This band's genre is vintage death metal with guitars tuned to B-flat and leads displaying Adam Scott's talented mix of arpeggios/tremolo picking/tapping. The songs are energy filled with mostly fast tempos, but also with milder parts, which are few and far between. The music displays riffs that are chunky/heavy with a huge load of distortion. There are some instances of melodic sounds, but mostly a deep blend of tremolo picked parts and chord progressions. Tracks such as "Insanity's Grip", "Rage on...Fuck Off" and "Affliction of the Beast" are good songs to hear for a bit of what this album is like. I enjoyed all of the tracks, but there were some songs that were more memorable than others. I like the heavy sounds which resemble a great deal like that of Dismember, Napalm Death and Morbid Angel influenced style of death metal.

The production is a little flat sounding, but overall, it's solid. I still think that the band's debut full-length release entitled Morgue Mutilations has a better production sound to it. Nevertheless, Haven for the Insane sound wise contains a good mixture of all of the instruments, especially the main guitars. The vocals altogether are a blend of mainly burly spewed outputs with other backup high end screaming which is heard on a few songs. Lyrical content contains themes such as horror worship, gore and zombies. However, on the insert to this album, there are no lyrics that were published. On the band's older website, there were a few songs from their debut EP that the band made the public known what their topics chose to be on. The lyrics go hand in hand with the music because it backs up their overly heavy amounts of raging death metal. There are no cover songs on this release, but the track entitled "Haunted Remnants" was re-recorded on this full-length. 

Overall, Haven for the Insane is probably my second favorite album by the band. At present, Morgue Mutilations is undoubtedly a classic and Cadaverous Presence also is a strong output by the band. The vocals, guitars and drums were all highlights displayed here. My only complaint was the production, which was a bit flat sounding, as I previously mentioned. If you want to hear some gruesomely heavy and unrelenting death metal, this release is a must by all undying extreme music fans.

Rating: 8 out of 10